Revelations: Resident Evil SV
by Liquid
Summary: In 2007, a year after the city of Terragrigia was destroyed by the bio-terror organization known as Veltro, that same group of terrorists seems to have come back from the dead with a vengeance. To stop them, Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine must infiltrate a long abandoned cruise liner in order to discover the secrets of Veltro and their new virus... but nothing is what it seems.
1. Chapter 1 I Dream of Terragrigia

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter One: I Dream of Terragrigia**

_Mediterranean Sea, just south of Malta_

_April 15__th__, 1999_

"Jesus, will you hurry the hell up?" The dark haired reporter asked impatiently. "Ms. Ashland doesn't have all day, and we need to send the footage by two."

"Hey, I'm going as fast as I can, all right?" Her cameraman replied, carefully setting up his equipment. "And it's not like she's going anywhere… I mean, where the hell is there _to_ go all the way out here?"

The cameraman was annoying, as most of them were, but in this instance he had a good point. After taking an hour long helicopter flight from Malta's southern coast, the two of them had been brought to what looked like the remains of an old oil rig that had been left abandoned in the relatively shallow waters of this part of the Mediterranean Sea for what looked like decades. This didn't mean that the place was abandoned, though, since thanks to the _very_ deep pockets of a woman from the southern region of the United States, a massive construction project was underway.

Crews were removing defunct machinery and equipment from the rig, while surveyors were checking the supports, and some transport vessels were bringing in construction materials as if… as if the rumors about what had been happening out there in the sea were actually true. With the remaining platform rendered mostly flat from the removal efforts, it was easy for the reporter to find her subject… standing over toward the edge, gesturing outward into another part of the sea with her arm while a bunch of men in hardhats took notes… right, as if all these men took a lady boss seriously.

"Do a quick test, Roberto." She said, checking her makeup in a compact before standing in front of the camera. "Is it all set up? How's my hair?"

"Your hair can't _possibly _move with all that _spray_ you put in it." The cameraman replied, adjusting the focus to prepare for the shot. "Video is good, but give the microphone a few words."

Everything was fine when the microphone was tested, so the two of them made their way across the old, cracked concrete of the rig platform. The sky was cloudy, not looking like rain, but just enough to stop the sun from shining… which was not ideal, since it was only April and the winds left over from wintertime were still pretty cold, and down below the platform there were large waves crashing against the supports. For a moment the reporter wondered how the surveyors managed to continue working down there, but then their subject came into view, and it was time to focus.

She had heard that Ms. Ashland was pretty, and the rumors were right, and… yeah, this woman definitely came from someplace like Louisiana, with her tight fitting blue jeans and flannel shirt. In Italy most women wore their hair long, so it was odd to see one who had cut it to shoulder length, but this style probably made it easier for the brunette woman to wear a hardhat. The reporter had also expected the men around their _boss_ to be ogling her or just kind of laughing off what she told them to do, but again this was not the case.

"Well sugar, the central platform's gonna be a big ol' circle, like I said." Ms. Ashland said in a really thick southern accent. "So we're gonna be needin' that many supports all the way round', now aren't we?"

"Yes, ma'am, anything you say." The man closest to her quickly replied. "We're gonna have our crews working around the clock, aren't we lads?"

The others all nodded their heads, eagerly expressing how hard they and their teams were going to work to achieve this vision of hers, and… and if the reporter hadn't known any better, she would have thought that the men almost seemed _afraid_ of her. That was ridiculous, though, since what reason would any of them have had to be scared of a skinny little American girl like that… no matter how rich she was? All right, there was a deadline to meet, so it was time for the reporter to put all personal feelings aside and get serious.

"Excuse me, Ms. Ashland? I'm Sofia Russo from _NTS News_." The reporter said, walking up to her. "I really appreciate you taking the time to give our network an interview like this, and… things really seem to be busy out here."

"Lovely to meet ya, darlin'. And please… call me _Amelia_." The brunette woman replied, shaking hands with her. "Gotta stay busy; them big ol' dream ain't gonna build themselves… somethin' my dad and brother never figured out… God rest'em."

For a billionaire business tycoon, Amelia was really polite, but Sophia had heard that about people from America's rural south, and the brunette woman continued this trait by asking them if it was better to interview her outdoors or undercover because of the wind. Referring to Roberto's knowledge of the equipment, it was decided that the camera would get a bunch of footage of the crews working outside, before the actual interview took place indoors. This however, didn't mean that the reporter couldn't get a few personal details about this amazing woman who had quite literally… appeared out of nowhere.

"Sugar, I had my whole life all planned out." Amelia said while Roberto went around to get the shots he needed. "But then last year, thanks to my best friend an her brother, it was like I want an woke up from a big ol' nap an… I found I weren't doin' nothin' but holdin' onto what my family wanted… an it was time for a change."

So that was what she did; cashing out of her family's primary interests, the brunette woman changed her hair and got a whole new look, before setting out to start building a few dreams of her own. Apparently she was a damn good negotiator too, since every corporation she had gone to with the idea had agreed to pledge all the support she needed no matter what it took… after only speaking with her for less than an hour in each meeting. Now with the funding and resources at her disposal, Amelia had actually started construction of that dream… a dream that she called Terragrigia.

"Imagine if you will, the world's first floatin' city." She explained, putting an arm around Sophia and gesturing out across the water. "Well, it ain't _really_ gonna float, that's stupid, but once we get this here platform extended, an then build up them others round' it, in a few years' time there's gonna be a right beautiful city sittin' right here on the water."

Continuing the explanation, the brunette woman described how the whole thing was going to be powered by a massive solar network provided via an orbital satellite that she was… still in the process of getting authorization to build. Along with solar power, this _aquapolis_ was going to have wind and water turbine systems for backup, this in itself creating _thousands_ of jobs for the people who were going to live in its modern twenty-first century housing.

"Terragrigia's gonna have all them comforts of any big city." Amelia described, smiling so big that her green eyes showed for a second above her sunglasses. "Businesses, shoppin' centers, restaurants, schools for the young'ins, an most important… so many people. Why, it's any scientist's dream, er… you know, like for, uh… them _anthropologists_ who, uh… like to study folks."

Initial estimates had claimed that this project was going to take more than ten years to complete, but after wrangling her way into all the new funding and resources, the newest data showed that this brilliant new city would be ready for the first residents to move in by the middle of 2006… only seven years from right now. Such a timetable suited the brunette woman just fine, since she was only twenty three, and the mentioning of this brought Sophia into the other part of the interview.

"So, tell us, Amelia… does all this work and _dream building_ mean you have to stay single?" The reporter asked, causing both of them to smile a bit. "I'm sure our viewers would love to know, especially our _male_ viewers… is there a man in your life?"

"Oh darlin', there is only _one_ man for me." The brunette woman replied. "We're takin' a little time to get our lives in order; he's got his work, an I got this here, but don't you worry none, our time'll come."

From where Sophia was standing, on the platform of a broken down oil rig in the middle of the sea, it was a little hard to imagine that in seven years there would be a sprawling metropolis sitting on this very spot. Not just that, but one that was completely environmentally friendly, even to the point where all of the cars were going to be electric. All of this sounded amazing, but the one thing that the reporter didn't understand was what the creator, herself got out of all this.

"You mean, on top'a makin' this world a better place?" Amelia asked with a smirk. "For one, I get a big ol' luxury condo to retire in one day, an I also get a quiet, secure place for workin' on my other pursuits. I know your head's jus' a-spinnin' with doubts, but in a few years' time your gonna see… it's gonna be perfect."

Well, that was just about everything that was needed for the interview, so goodbyes were said, and then Sophia and Roberto parted ways with the brunette woman, who headed back to work while they returned to where their helicopter was still waiting. This was certainly going to be a good exclusive, the reporter thought while her cameraman packed away his equipment, and sure she had her doubts about something as radical as this Terragrigia project. Still… if Amelia Ashland was somehow able to pull this off, the next interview the reporter out there would be get even better ratings.

"So, what did you think about Ms. Ashland?" Sophia asked as they got into the helicopter and pulled the side door closed. "She's really something, isn't she?"

"Yeah, I think she's hot." Roberto replied, putting on his seatbelt as the engines warmed up. "Too bad she's got a man, though… must be a real lucky guy."

Now the helicopter's rotors were spinning fast enough to lift the vehicle off the oil rig's platform, and as they got higher up above the construction site, it was getting even harder to believe that all of this… wreckage from twenty years ago was going to be the foundation for _the city of the future_… hey, that was a good title for the exclusive… maybe with a question mark on the end, since no one knew if the project was going to succeed.

"All right, get us back to the island." She said to the pilot. "We gotta get this footage to editing by two, remember?"


	2. Chapter 2 BSAA Plus One

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Two: BSAA Plus One**

_Control Tower, Terragrigia_

_December 5__th__, 2005_

"Jesus, look at that." O'Brian commented, looking out the small side window of the helicopter. "It's… Chris, get up here and look, it's incredible."

Brought out of the thoughts which had consumed him during the silence that filled the small aircraft since takeoff at nearby _Brizebbuga_ in _Malta_, Chris Redfield got up from his seat against the opposite wall. The entire flight was going to be a short one, not even long enough to cause soreness from sitting in the same position, so it was easy for the thirty two year old to move to the window where his comrade was looking out across the Mediterranean Sea. It took his eyes a second to adjust to the direct sunlight, but when Chris put his hand up to block the sun, he realized that the light was coming from below as well.

With the helicopter slowly swinging around so that at least one source of light was blocked, he had to admit that what he was seeing _was_ pretty incredible. A small city was there, sitting on top of a massive concrete platform that had once been the remnants of a few offshore oil rigs, looking more like a man-made private island. Empty streets and sidewalks carved their way across the top of the plate, bordered by areas of grass and trees that were sometimes big enough to be considered a public park, but it was the buildings that were hurting his eyes.

Constructed of a mixture of white concrete along with metal that so new and shiny that it was reflecting the sun, the buildings started out as smaller apartment complexes around the edge of the platform sort of like suburbs, and then got progressively bigger while moving toward the thirty story slant-roof skyscrapers that surrounded what could only be described as _the tower_. Looming far above everything else on the manmade island, the tower had to be at least sixty or seventy stories high, with a slowly rotating glass structure on the top that stood almost another ten, giving it the appearance of a shimmering jewel.

"It's beautiful." Chris commented, eventually needing to look away from the brightness. "And all of this was designed by one woman?"

He remembered seeing the news broadcast back when the mysterious Amelia Ashland had popped out from nowhere, and honestly he had thought she was crazy for throwing billions of dollars into a project that just didn't seem possible at the time. How Ms. Ashland was able to gather such support for what she called Terragrigia, Chris would probably never know, but now six years later, there it was. The last bits of construction had only been completed last week, leaving this place as a fully functional, if empty, city… and then they had received a surprise invitation.

Like with all new projects of this scale, there were rumors circling around in the media, accusing the city's designer of having ulterior motives for creating such a place, and even though Umbrella's fall was becoming a distant memory, more recent incidents such as _The Starlight Disaster_ and _The Las Plagas Incident_ were bringing fears of illegal research and hidden criminal operations back to the surface. As outlandish as some of the rumors were, apparently Amelia Ashland wanted to squash them before the city officially opened, and that was why the BSAA was invited to attend a private inspection tour.

The _Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance_, made famous during the handling of the Starlight disaster, was still a fledgling organization that constantly struggled to find the needed finding and resources needed to operate on a global scale, since they didn't fall under the direction of any single nation, so their regional Director, Clive R. O'Brian, jumped at the chance to both assess a potential threat and also give the BSAA some much need good publicity. So the invitation was accepted, and the Director was allowed to bring a _Plus One_, which was how Chris Redfield found himself coming along for the ride.

In contrast to the Agent's solid, somewhat imposing build, O'Brian was a smaller man, a bit older and a lot more nervous looking, but he was clever. He always had a plan, and stayed cool under pressure regardless of his nervous demeanor, making him far better suited for administration work than being out in the field. Chris supposed that the two of them made a decent team; O'Brian handling the inspection work, and the Agent there to keep him safe if things went wrong… he really hoped that nothing would go wrong in such a beautiful place.

If it did, though, Chris really was the ideal choice to send for backup, being that he had more experience with extreme situations that all but a few Agents around the world, and on top of that, he was one of only a handful of people who had been given a dose of Umbrella's _Daylight_ vaccine back in 1998… along with his sister, Claire who got it from the same place he did, and Jill Valentine who had received it during the Raccoon City outbreak. According to Alexia Ashford, it was supposed to protect him against all known forms of the T-Virus, and at least put up a good fight against most others… sort of comforting to know.

"All right, Chris, this is a _guest table manners_ situation." The Director said as they prepared to touch down on the landing pad on top of the tower. "So try to be nice, and remember that if all goes well here, we might even be able to pick up a little funding from the, uh… Ashland Foundation. So smile now and then, huh? And don't be afraid to flirt a bit if she likes you."

"Right, because a multi-billionaire's just gonna be _all over_ _me_, right?" Chris replied, smirking a bit as when the helicopter started moving down. "Sorry, O'Brian, but I'm not as pretty as Jill."

The Director just shrugged, and then they both had a brief laugh about the time a few months ago when O'Brian had been invited to attend a convention where a bunch of really rich people were looking for things to throw money at. The gathering was a lot more involved than that, but it was the simplest description, and the Director had nearly gotten himself slapped when he asked Jill to come along in order to make the BSAA seem more _alluring_. It worked, though, with the brunette only having to smile now and then, causing the organization to miraculously seem like a worthy cause… might also have had something to do with the low cut dress she had to wear.

"_Don't think for a minute you don't owe me for this, O'Brian_." Chris said in a high pitch mocking of Jill's voice, putting his hands on his hips. "_I'm a BSAA Field Agent, not some pinup-girl_."

"_Whoever invented high-heels should be shot_." The Director continued, mocking in the same high pitch voice. "_And how would you like it if a bunch of men old enough to be your father were staring at your ass all night_?"

The laughter continued until the helicopter touched down a couple seconds later, with both men clearing their throats and getting their _game-faces_ back on before opening the side door to climb out. With the heater running inside the aircraft, the Agent had briefly forgotten that it was wintertime, but the rush of cold air gave him a quick reminder when he opened the door. The temperature wasn't quite low enough for snow, but it was damn close, and as the two of them stepped onto the landing pad, Chris wondered why all this reflecting sunlight wasn't making it warmer.

It seemed that only a skeleton crew of a staff was working in and around the city, since the Agent only saw fleeting glimpses of employees moving around the landing pad and someone had to have given the pilot landing instructions, and… hey, wait, there was another helicopter coming in. As soon as theirs left, another almost identical aircraft touched down, this one bearing the emblem of the _Federal Bioterrorism Commission_. The FBC was similar in many ways to the BSAA, except for the fact that they were much larger and better funded, while also working under the direction of the United States Government.

When the side door opened, an older man with white hair and a beard stepped out, carrying a cane that he didn't really appear to need… and followed by a lovely young woman with short brown hair. Chris knew who the older man was; Commissioner Morgan Lansdale was the head of the FBC, and it made sense that Ms. Ashland would invite representatives from different organizations in order to keep people from thinking that one was biased or that she was bribing them. The young woman must have been one of Lansdale's agents, and it was… not surprising at all that he would want such a pretty one nearby.

"Commissioner Lansdale, it's good to see you again." The Director said, walking up to them once their helicopter took off. "This is Chris Redfield, one of my best agents."

"O'Brian." Lansdale coldly replied, his voice deeper than expected as they shook hands. "I expected you to bring Ms. Valentine… oh, this is Jessica Sherawat, one of _my _best. Perhaps we should have them fight to the death for our amusement?"

Everyone was silent for a few seconds, not sure how to react to that last remark, but then the older man started to chuckle in a way that sounded both forced and robotic at the same time, suggesting that it was an attempt at humor. O'Brian forced himself to chuckle uncomfortably as well, giving Chris a slight elbow in the stomach so that he would play along, and after a couple second of that the silence returned… somehow making everything feel even more awkward than before.

"Nice to meet you, Chris." Jessica said, breaking the silence while offering her hand. "Pretty exciting, isn't it? Being the first people to see Terragrigia?"

"Yeah, it _is_, actually." The Agent replied, making her smile a bit when he shook her hand. "Who knows, if I like it here, maybe I'll beat the rush and get a condo."

The group chuckled at this just a little, well, all except Commissioner Lansdale, making things seem awkward once again, but thankfully this was quickly forgotten when a nearby metal door opened, allowing their host to emerge, wearing her now trademark flannel shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. Waving to them politely while making her way onto the landing pad, Amelia Ashland had a big smile on her face as she shook each of their hands, although gasping a little and stopping for a second after making eye contact with Chris.

Even with the large Hollywood style sunglasses covering brown haired woman's eyes, there was something really familiar about her, causing the Agent to almost ask her if he knew her from somewhere… of course that was a retarded question, since he knew damn well who she was, and the feeling was probably just because he had seen her on TV so much in the last couple years. She smiled at him, though, and for some reason it felt… _really_ good when she did… making him want to smile back.

"Well, I am just _delighted_ that ya'll could make it." Ms. Ashland said, smiling at all of them again. "Now if ya'll will follow me, we can start by gettin' outta the cold air… welcome to Terragrigia."


	3. Chapter 3 The Inspection Tour

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Three: The Inspection Tour**

_Control Tower, Terragrigia_

_December 5__th__, 2005_

The heating system in Terragrigia's control tower worked surprisingly well, keeping the interior of the building warm without being overpowering, and as soon as Chris and the other guests were all seated in what looked like a kind of situation room, Ms. Ashland began to go over the main points of her city. Using a virtual map on the large monitor screen behind her, the brown haired woman gave them an orientation to the basics of how the city was going to function, beginning with the lowest levels, where the remains of the oil rigs' interiors had been converted into a sewer system.

She was going on about how the hydro turbines were positioned, as well as something to do with recycling waste water, but the Agent was only partially listening. O'Brian was taking notes, probably in order to ask intelligent sounding questions during the tour, while Lansdale just sat there looking generally displeased, with his fingers folded on the table, and Jessica tried to keep herself from yawning too loudly. Chris, however, found himself just staring endlessly at their host as she walked back and forth to point at things on the screen.

God, she was cute in those jeans, the Agent found himself thinking, especially when Amelia had to walk away from him to get to another part of the screen. Yes, he was _trying_ to stay professional, and to keep his mind on what was actually a pretty important assignment, but this was getting increasingly difficult to do. Chris didn't want to admit this, but he hadn't been with a woman since the end of 1998, and his last relationship was _really_ unhealthy… he had liked her though… a lot… and ever since Alexia was killed, he had felt like he was doing something wrong any time he even _looked_ at someone else. So… why wasn't that happening now?

"Terragrigia ain't as big as _New York City_, or nothin'." Ms. Ashland continued, changing the screen to show the city from above. "But it's got a hospital, shoppin' centers, schools, a po-lice station, and… hey, look… look over there yonder, out the window."

The brown haired woman motioned for all of them to follow her over to the row of windows that made up the back wall of the room, so Chris and the others got up, quickly following her and then looking out across the city. Again, it took the Agent's eyes a few seconds to adjust to how bright it was outside, but the wait was worth in order to both see the beautiful full-size cruise liner that was docked at the city's western port… and also to have their host brushing up against him while they were all trying to see.

"That there's the Queen, uh… _Zenobia_… I think." Amelia said, smiling at him for a second. "Bought it from the folks at _Paraguas Line _over in _Sicily_; they was gonna scrap'em at the end of next season… can't see why, just cost a basic refit and they're good as new, and now Terragrigia's got its own cruise line."

Jesus Christ, the Agent thought as they went back to sit down, just how much God damn money did this girl have? She had come out of the middle of _Nowhere, Lousiana_, built a fully functional city from scratch, and now was adding a damn _cruise liner_ just for fun? Shortly after that the actual tour began, starting with the control tower itself, which housed most of the city's administrative and emergency services, sort of like a tactical City Hall. A lot of the building's office suites were empty though.

Once through the tower, the group was led outside where a small limousine was parked, while the rest of all the city's streets were deserted… wait, no, there were a few service vehicles moving around, probably making final checks throughout the buildings like elevators and heaters. With the driver unseen through the heavily tinted glass, everyone got into the shiny black car, with Ms. Ashland all but pulling Chris to sit down next to her on one side, while Jessica frowned with disappointment, having to be wedged in between Lansdale and O' Brian on the other.

"So what happens if there's a hurricane?" The BSAA Director asked, breaking the momentary silence as the car started moving. "I didn't see any shelters on the map; how do the people here stay safe?"

"Nice to know least _one_ of ya'll was payin' attention up there." The brown haired woman replied, leaning on Chris while pointing out the window. "Every window and all buildin' materials on Terragrigia's rated to withstand a category five hurricane, and thanks to _Regia SOLUS_, we ain't even gonna lose power."

Having been silent for most of the orientation, Commissioner Lansdale asked what she was referring to, causing their host to have to lean over Chris even more in order to point upward into the sky where… something could just barely be seen like when a mirror reflects light. Regia SOLUS, the last part being an abbreviation for _Solar Integrated System_, was apparently a private satellite that was designed to reflect the sun's energy down onto the city's solar panels in case of emergency, with the settings able to be adjusted depending on whether it was a simple cloud cover or a full scale hurricane that the beam had to penetrate.

"That seems… kinda dangerous." Jessica spoke up, leaning forward to try and get out from between the others. "I mean, the sun has _a lot_ of power, right? So… what happens if the satellite tilts the wrong way or something?"

"Nothin'." Ms. Ashland replied casually. "It's only made to be used for emergencies, and for _anythin'_ to come outta the satellite, someone's hands gotta be on the controls the whole time or it jus' shuts on down."

Well, that was _kind of_ reassuring, the Agent thought as the car slowed down in front of one of the smaller buildings near the edge of the city. There was no way to see everything, so a sample of each kind of building was selected, beginning with the suburban apartment complexes, and working their way inward. So the tour went on; apartments, one of the solar arrays, a primary school, the hospital, and then lunch at one of the few already open restaurants at the city's largest, and mostly empty shopping mall. Each facility was completely different, but they all had one thing in common…as futuristic and modern as the exterior of Terragrigia was, the inside all looked like it was straight out of the 1980's.

Bright colors and neon signs filled the shopping mall, reminding Chris of his childhood, even though the visible items in the stores that were already being set up were modern, making a really weird contrast. The apartment complex had been the same way, but with more subdued colors and solid black wooden furniture, all illuminated by shaded light fixtures that kept the illumination level low. The décor of the schools and hospital had been the same, making the Agent feel like he had stepped back in time, or maybe into a futuristic sci-fi movie that had been made in the 80's.

"I have to admit, this city is really something else." O'Brian commented between bites of his pulled pork sandwich. "From what I've seen, Ms. Ashland, Terragrigia is not only in compliance with international law, but it's also _completely_ eco-friendly. And I love the whole retro-futuristic thing you got going on, it's like that movie _Logan's Run_… just hopefully better than that for people over thirty."

"_Bah_… as usual, O'Brian, you can only see what's right in front of you." The FBC Commissioner argued, poking at his own food with the fork and then setting it down. "A city such as this, as revolutionary as the concept is, breeds nothing but complacency and further denial of the current global climate."

Everyone, even his own subordinate, Jessica, all just looked at the older man as he started going on about how ever since the Raccoon City Outbreak, the world had become a hotbed of bioterrorism and illegal research into weapons of mass destruction, citing the recent incident in Spain where the entire population of a remote village was infected by a religious cult as a step in their plan for world domination. Not to mention the Starlight Incident before that, where a pair of escaped Umbrella bioweapons caused the deaths of more than four hundred people as well as the sinking of the ship itself.

His point in all this was that while Amelia Ashland was sinking untold billions of dollars into the Terragrigia project, there were terrorist groups out there plotting at that very moment, and that such evil men didn't simply disappear once the world forgot about the latest crisis. Now it was Director O'Brian's turn to jump back in, replying that this was the exact reason that their organizations existed in the first place; to rigidly enforce the law and to protect people like their host, who just wanted to live in peace, from bioterrorists like _White Umbrella_ and _Los Iluminados_.

This argument went back and forth for a little while between the two men, with Lansdale arguing that everything Terragrigia stood for was threatened as long as _dreamers_ like their host refused to accept reality, while O'Brian continued to applaud Ms. Ashland's efforts while insisting that the BSAA and the FBC fought all these battles so that dreamers like her and the innocent people who were going to live on Terragrigia wouldn't have to.

"Yes, I am… _familiar_ with that argument." Lansdale said with even more irritation in his voice. "However, I believe that if an… _experiment _like this one _must _go forward, it will need oversight, if not protection. That being said, I would like to officially request that Ms. Ashland allow the FBC to setup a permanent presence within Terragrigia. A branch office, if you will. I'll even leave Ms. Sherawat here to oversee its establishment."

"Now, that sounds like a _fine_ idea." Their host replied, not having stopped eating her own food for one second of the argument. "We got plenty of space available in the tower, and you're gettin' charged like everyone else, so I don't mind at all. Will the BSAA be wantin' to do the same, Director O'Brian."

"Well, uh… we don't exactly have the funding for a new _branch office_." O'Brian replied, the nervousness returning to his voice. "But maybe we could provide a liaison… yeah, we could fund a temporary liaison, uh… just for a few months until the city really gets going. Starting immediately, right?"

"Ow!" Chris exclaimed after feeling the Director's elbow going roughly into his side. "I mean, uh… I volunteer, I guess. I mean, I'm happy to be the BSAA's liaison."

"Well, that's just grand." Ms. Ashland said, smiling as the Agent. "Looks like you'll be stayin' here with _me_ after this little tour's done… welcome to Terragrigia."


	4. Chapter 4 Il Veltro

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Four: Il Veltro**

_Yellow Pine Apartments, Terragrigia_

_January 20__th__, 2006_

Just after Christmas, the floating city of Terragrigia opened as scheduled, allowing all of the people who had reserved living space, and there were a lot of them, and their families to move in. As Amelia said, most of them were engineers and scientists, ready to begin their new jobs in every area from sanitation, to management of the many solar arrays that were scattered around the city's lower levels and rooftops. There were also medical doctors to begin work at the hospital, and a lot of experienced police officers from several countries who were coming to make a fresh start.

Every group that came in got an orientation sort of like the one Chris had received during the inspection tour almost two months ago, with the brown haired woman having all of their information recorded in great detail. Everything from ethnicity, blood type, allergies, and in even more detail when it came to the children, all of which Ms. Ashland insisted was just to keep things more organized. In a matter of days there were so many new residents that the streets and shopping centers were indistinguishable from any other city around the world… except with significantly less crime.

Meanwhile, Jessica Sherawat went about setting up the FBC's new branch office, along with her new partner, a stocky fellow by the name of Luciana, and soon the place was ready for the rest of the staff to arrive… along with regular visits from Lansdale himself. Honestly, the man was like a gargoyle, just kind of looming over the city, constantly watching for the threats that he was always warning Amelia about each time they talked, leaving poor Jessica and the rest of his people very little free time to enjoy all of what Terragrigia had to offer.

Now, Chris on the other hand, being nothing more than an independent liaison for the BSAA, found that for once in his life he had _plenty_ of free time. Still keeping to his duties of constantly checking for threats or suspicious activity, the Agent made sure to investigate every corner of the city; the sewer levels, the administration tower, the residential districts… the movie theater, the shopping mall… and the bowling alley. But there were other days when he didn't leave his apartment, content to survey the surrounding area from the third floor of this suburban building… or else just watching Television.

"I still can't believe you got _DirecTV_ all the way out _here_." Chris said, flipping through the channels. "You know, I heard they were gonna start switching more channels to _HDTV_ this year."

"Yeah, that's fine and all, but I'm hearin' that _Netflix_ thing's the future of TV." Amelia replied, holding freshly made popcorn as she sat down on the couch and leaned slightly onto him. "I bought a whole buncha' stock in it, and with the internet gettin' faster, I'm gonna propose a way to see any movie ya'll want at any time… now go to On Demand and put on Derailed… I just _love_ Jennifer Aniston."

Chris didn't give a damn about Jennifer Aniston or whatever stupid movie she was in, but any torturous chick-flick was worth it to spend more alone time with Amelia. It was funny; at first he had been so sure that the brown haired woman reminded him of someone, and the possibility actually frightened him a little for some reason, but after having a conversation with her, his mind became clear. The Agent must have been really confused before, because now it was like a fog had lifted, and… and he really liked her… he just _knew_ that everything was fine.

"You know, if this movie sucks, you're gonna have to make it up to me." He said after reaching the right channel. "And I've got pretty high standards."

"Do you now?" She replied, smiling a little while setting down the popcorn on the coffee table. "Then maybe I should start _makin' it up to you_ a little in advance."

Amelia was so beautiful and her thick southern accent was driving Chris crazy, so he had no objections when she started kissing him… at least not until the TV startled both of them by suddenly going to a very loud static screen. Separating from her, the Agent tried to use the remote control to change the channel, but it didn't work, nor did his attempts to lower the volume or even turn the whole thing off. Maybe the batteries had died, he thought, but then the TV screen started to change again right before he was about to stand up.

At first the static became multicolored, with little flashes of conflicting images just for a second, as if two channels with really weak signal strength were trying to broadcast at the same time, but then it slowly came into focus. There was a yellow background, with some kind of a black trapezoid toward the center, along with… what the hell was that? As the image finished focusing, it became clear that the other images that adorned the yellow background were a really old rifle that had a bayonet attached, and there was a sickly looking dog next to it. Finally at the bottom, in bold black letters were the words: _IL VELTRO_.

Even once the image was as clear as it was going to get, the signal was still fuzzy and laced with static, like one of those _found footage_ movies where the whole thing was filmed by someone with a cheap camera, and no matter what was going on they couldn't manage to keep it completely still even for a second. As the camera shook, it became obvious that the image on the screen was a flag or some kind of banner, but there weren't any clues as to where this whole thing was being filmed… or what the purpose of this whole display was. Now the camera was moving, rotating around to a much darker section of the room, where three armed men wearing gas masks were standing in front of a metal wall.

"_People of Terragrigia… of the world_!" The center man began, his voice partially muffled by the mask. "_We are Veltro; vengeful messengers from the depths of the inferno, and we bring with us a warning… a warning to all who are content to embrace the corruption and decadence of the modern world… a world that you brought onto yourselves_!"

It was a little hard to understand everything the masked man was saying, especially since his Italian accent was pretty strong, and apparently the word Veltro meant Greyhound. Not a fluent speaker of Italian, the Agent only knew that because Amelia made a comment about it, but then the masked man's message continued. From what he was saying, this group was angry about the construction of Terragrigia, calling it a symbol of everything that was wrong with the modern world, and a hive of greed and corruption… which made no sense, given that the floating city had a non-existent crime rate and was completely eco-friendly.

"What is this?" Chris asked as the ranting continued. "This guy isn't making any sense… some kind of prank, you think?"

"It's gotta stop, whatever it is." The brown haired woman replied, getting up and picking up the phone receiver on the wall. "Control, this is Ms. Ashland; somethin' weird's goin' on, and I need… hello? Control?"

She tapped the receiver a couple times, since the landlines were designed like back in the 80's, where doing so would connect the user to one of the city's operators, but something was apparently wrong with the phone service, since she couldn't get through to anyone. Grumbling about how ridiculous this all was, Amelia turned toward the window, before telling Chris to look outside… and that was when he saw that the same image was being broadcast on the large public address screens outside, with all the people on the street having stopped to watch.

"_Do you hear the growling of the hounds, Terragrigia_?" The masked man continued. "_We do not hunt alone, we hunt in packs, bringing ordained destruction by air, land, and sea. Sympathy cannot be spared for those caught in the jaws of the hounds, for they brought this corrupt modern world into being, and it is their destiny to be purged in its destruction. The hounds are pure of purpose; teeth bared and claws sharpened, ready to sacrifice ourselves to the cause of bringing purity back to the world. All will know that we are Veltro, and the new world begins now_!"

With that, the camera panned back over to the Veltro flag for a couple seconds, before the TV screen returned to that loud static. The same thing happened to all of the public address screens outside, and the brown haired woman was still unable to reach control on the phone, or anyone else for that matter. So now that the strange broadcast was over, Chris was left wondering what these Veltro people could have meant by all that purification and corruption nonsense, since he had seen with his own eyes how crime-free and environmentally friendly Terragrigia was.

He was just about to ask Amelia if she had any luck on the phone yet, when a new sound reached his ears from outside. It was quiet at first, but quickly grew louder until what looked like a really small airplane flew right past his apartment windows. As it passed, however, its rear doors were open, releasing a trail of what looked like some kind of red smoke all across the area. Just before the trail became wide enough to obscure his view, however, the Agent saw that there were more of those small planes flying down other streets as well.

The people who had been outside were caught completely off guard, and when the red cloud started to dissipate enough to be seen through again, Chris could see the people coughing while trying to run away… some kind of gas maybe? Wait, there was something else, too… while the smoke had been spreading, the Agent had been barely aware of a constant _thumping_ sound, revealed to be some kind of cargo crates that had apparently dropped all over the streets from… I don't know, maybe a bigger airplane… and they were _everywhere_.

Some of the people out there seemed to be okay as they ran, while others were vomiting and falling over onto the ground as if they were sick… and then the cargo crates started to move. No, they didn't move, their hatches were smashed open from inside, allowing a horror that Chris hadn't seen since the Spencer Estate to emerge… from _all _of them. Back then Wesker had called them _Hunters_; looking like some kind of crossbreed between a gorilla and a frog, with teeth and claws capable of ripping a man in half, and possessing enough raw strength to not really need them.

Having been taken completely off guard by this series of events, the Agent was only now realizing that those Veltro people were serious, and that a full blown bioterrorist attack was happening all across Terragrigia. My God, it was Raccoon City all over again, and this time he and Amelia were caught right in the middle. Okay, think, Chris… he needed to get her to safety first, and then hopefully between him, the FBC, and Terragrigia's police force, the incident could be contained before everything was lost.


	5. Chapter 5 Anniversary

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Five: Anniversary**

_BSAA Regional Headquarters_

_Birzebbuga, Malta_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

_ Drip… drip… drip_, the small coffee maker bubbled and hissed out little puffs of steam as it slowly filled the glass container, its content something that Jill Valentine desperately needed in order to really start the day. Early mornings had never really been her thing, especially now that the brunette was in her thirties, so she just stood there while the little machine seemed to be taunting her by going so slowly. Sighing with frustration, Jill turned away from the machine in the hopes that it would seem to go faster, but now the only thing for her to occupy her mind with was the news broadcast on the small TV mounted in the corner.

On the screen, the familiar face of Sophia Russo was seen as the reporter walked along the coastline toward the camera, talking about how it had now been a year since the disaster that had come to be known as _The Terragrigia Panic_. The image changed to show several short clips of videos taken during the three day long incident, mostly consisting of cell phone recordings of the small planes disbursing the red smoke, and a few that showed those hunter monsters leaping over abandoned cars while pursuing the panicked citizens.

"_Claiming responsibility for the unprovoked attack was the bioterrorist organization known as Veltro_." Sophia's voice explained while the screen showed the recording of the men in gas masks. "_An attack which quickly overwhelmed local police, even with the assistance of FBC and BSAA forces, resulting in a desperate solution_."

Jill remembered hearing about this next part; how FBC Commissioner Lansdale declared the city a total loss, and then shocked the world when he seized remote control of Terragrigia's orbital satellite, Regia SOLIS. The sun had already set by the time this drastic measure was implemented; charging up all of the satellite's cells with sunlight, and then directing its full power right onto the city itself. For thirty miles around Terragrigia, the ocean was lit up bright as day for several minutes, but as Ms. Ashland had warned, the satellite's full power came with a price.

Video footage from the last evacuation helicopters captured instances of those hunter monsters being melted into nothing by the powerful solar rays, followed by abandoned cars catching fire in the streets, and then the very supports of the city itself starting to bend under the extreme heat until they could no longer sustain the plate above them. The end result was what Sophia was pointing too across the water, and when the camera panned over, the ruins of a once great city could be seen sticking out of the water in the distance.

A couple of the tallest buildings were still standing, although damaged beyond repair and leaning heavily to the side, while the whole area starting from all the way at the shore was barricaded off with a metal fence adorned with the FBC logo. The reporter explained that the barricades were still up in order to keep innocent people from possibly getting infected with any remnants of the virus used to attack the city.

"_We all grieve for the people of Terragrigia_." Commissioner Lansdale said when the screen changed to show his press conference from last year. "_However, this horrific event must stand as a reminder to the world of the very real dangers of bioterrorism… and also as a testament to the resolve of we who fight against them. I can now confirm that most of Veltro's leadership was caught in the last fires of the city they sought to destroy, and that my men are now hunting down the last remnants of these criminals_."

Following that broadcast, as well as the following announcement a couple months later that Veltro had been completely destroyed, the United Nations had voted as a whole to expand the funding and authority of the FBC, giving the American organization the same kind of worldwide authority enjoyed by the BSAA, just with enough money and resources to manage such a wide field of operation. To be fair, the BSAA had gained a few things too, like a permanent headquarters in Brizebbuga, which was great because, you know… Malta. And also a few new additions to the staff.

Over near the TV, leaning against the wall while eating a Danish or something, was former FBC Agent, Parker Luciani. He was a tall, stocky guy with beard stubble, all of which kind of reminded Jill of Barry Burton, even though the big man was a lot more cautious, and his voice definitely reflected his European heritage. He had come over from the FBC a few months after Terragrigia's destruction, claiming that he wanted to have more of an impact on the ground, since his old organization was too focused on administration and didn't actually _do_ enough.

And he wasn't the only former FBC Agent to switch over; there was another one, a young woman named Jessica, that Chris knew from his time working as a liaison. She seemed capable enough, tough and smart, but in Jill's honest opinion, the young woman was a little _too_ focused on him. When they had first met, Jessica kept subtly asking all sorts of questions about Chris, particularly whether or not he and the brunette were _a thing_, and smiling a little when she found out that there was a little less competition around.

The obvious crush that the young woman had on the Agent was cute and all, but also pretty pointless since everyone knew that Amelia Ashland, you know… the gorgeous _billionaire_, was sweet on him. And why not? Right after the city's destruction, Ms. Ashland had gone out of her way to tell reporters in great detail how Chris was a big hero who protected her from _dozens_ of those monsters. However, the Agent himself had been unavailable for comment at the time, recovering from some kind of head injury that he had sustained during the last hours of the Terragrigia Panic.

Still, Jessica was grown, and could do what she wanted, and that was evident based on how often she insisted on going on missions with Chris. Oh well, that was _her_ affair, Jill thought as she turned back around to see that the coffee maker had finally finished. So she grabbed one of the nearby Styrofoam cups, put a lot more sugar and creamer into it than she probably should have, and once she was done stirring it all together, the brunette was able to sip happily on a cup of coffee that was damn near white.

"That's not a coffee, that's a _milkshake_." Parker commented after walking nearby and looking at what she was drinking. "I'm surprised you and Chris don't just forget about the coffee and drink the creamer straight from the jug."

For a big guy, Parker was surprisingly conscious about health and fitness, so right then was probably not the best time to tell him that back in Raccoon City Chris and the other guys in STARS actually used to do just that… and speaking of the Agent, it had been a while since his mission started. This was as good a reason as any for changing the subject from Jill's choice of drink… as well as the doughnut she was planning to have with it, so she asked the big man if he had heard anything.

"Nothing yet… at least O' Brian hasn't _shared_ anything." Parker replied, looking judgmentally as the brunette dipped her doughnut in the coffee and took a bite. "This is a sensitive matter, so I'm not surprised if he wants to keep it top secret."

Jill agreed, since the last thing anyone wanted was for the general public to find out that there was even a _chance_ of Veltro coming back. Of course, no one seemed to know if the rumors that had started a week or so ago were anything but that… rumors. Still, this group had been responsible for the most devastating viral outbreak since Raccoon City, so if there was even the slightest chance that some of their members had survived, it needed to be investigated immediately… as well as _quietly_ so as not to start a panic.

"Good morning, everyone." The voice of Director O'Brian said, interrupting her thoughts as he pushed open the door with his side. "Uh… a little help, here?"

In addition to his briefcase and packed lunch, the Director was carrying a stack of really thick manila file folders, as well as rolled up parchments that looked like maps, all of which was a little much for a man his size to carry around. So Jill and Parker set down their drinks and gave him a hand, each of them taking half the load and following him into his office, once he managed to get it unlocked. Setting everything down on his desk, the two of them were about to walk back out, when O'Brian told them to stay, unrolling one of the maps and preparing a folder as well.

"Sit down, we got a bit of a situation this morning." The Director explained, taking his own seat behind the large wooden desk while they sat across from him. "Don't worry, it's nothing to do with Chris and Jessica; more of a local problem that needs to be investigated before any more rumors start flying around."

Turning the map around so that it was oriented for the two of them, Jill saw that it was a map of Malta and the surrounding waters, containing three areas that were highlighted in red. First was where Terragrigia used to be, with the second being a wide circle that represented everywhere that the FBC had blocked off for their quarantine, and the third was a small red X on the southernmost part of the island nation.

"Early this morning we started receiving reports that were, well… weird as hell." O'Brian continued, pointing to the small X. "Some local fishermen have reported to local police that some, uh… bloated creature washed up on the shore of Malta Freeport like a beached whale, and well… the picture he sent back should speak for itself."

Opening the folder, which contained a photograph of the fisherman that was paper clipped to his written statement to the police, the Director moved that aside in order to get to the next photograph, and it was disturbing to say the least. The creature in question, which didn't look like any beached whale that Jill had ever seen, was simply a bloated mass of discolored brownish-yellow flesh that looked like it was covered in sores.

Not that she could tell, but the thing must have washed ashore on its side, since a triangular mouth filled with large, sharpened yellow teeth was visible, and of course, the idiot fisherman and his friends were posing with it for pictures as if it were something to put on _Myspace_ or something. Not only were they posing next to it, but one of them had his foot on the thing's body like he had defeated it in battle or something… God, what if it had a disease or was still alive and attacked them, or something?

"We're on it, Director." Parker said, standing up before Jill could say anything. "Come on, Jill, time to work off that doughnut."


	6. Chapter 6 Washed Ashore

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Six: Washed Ashore**

_Malta Freeport, Malta_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

"Hey, get away from there!" Parker called out as he and Jill exited the car. "Hey, we're BSAA agents; this area is quarantined! Go on, get out!"

Since Malta was such a small island, it only took a little while to get anywhere at all, so less than an hour had passed between the briefing to when the two of them pulled up to the edge of Malta Freeport. The ride over had been pleasant enough, even though Jill was quickly losing her taste for Italian music, but it was still better than all that Spanish stuff that her ex-boyfriend listened to all the time. The brunette smiled for a second remembering how gorgeous Carlos Olivera had been, and how amazing he was in bed… but his music had been terrible, and once all the excitement from Raccoon City died down… the two of them just hadn't had anything in common.

She still talked to Carlos now and then, and their random hookups a few times a year were great, but there just wasn't really a future to be had between them. Oh well, Jill had more important things on her mind than her empty love life right now, beginning when she and Parker entered the industrial region of the Freeport, discovering two things. First, was that the reports of bloated, deformed creatures washing up onto the shoreline wasn't exaggerated, and second was that there were people down on the beach posing for pictures with them.

This wouldn't have been so bad if some of the people posing triumphantly with one foot on the creature's skin weren't local police, making it a little awkward when she and the big man had to run them off. These days even the police were ready to run at the first mention of _contamination_ or _viral exposure_, making it pretty easy to clear the area, but then leaving them to stare at a bunch of deformed… whatever the hell these things were. And the stench coming from them was awful, like the rancid corpse of a beached whale that had been left there to rot for a week.

Now that the police and others who originally found the deformed creatures had gone, the brunette noticed how eerily silent the area had become, aside from the cold wind and small crashing waves. This was because of the large metal fence that had been sunk into the ground starting at a couple meters away from the beach, and extending in both directions as far as the eye could see; a large warning sign with the FBC logo hung up on each section to deter anyone who might try to sneak past quarantine toward the ruins that lay beyond.

"All right, so we're here, and we've got… _these_." Jill said, pointing at the nearest blob while trying to breathe through her mouth. "What do you think we should do with them?"

"Try kickin' it, see what it does." A woman's voice interrupted just before the big man could speak. "Maybe shoot it a couple times… could be fun."

The brown haired woman was sitting on one of the beach's larger rocks a short distance away, looking toward the ocean, not at the quarantine fence, but the leaning ruins of Terragrigia off in the distance. The highest tower could be spotted, although no longer shining, and tilted heavily to the side, near a few other pieces that weren't so easily identifiable. Even after witnessing the destruction of Raccoon City with her own eyes, Jill still found it hard to believe that such destruction was, well… so easy.

"Ms. Ashland?" Parker asked, taking a step toward her. "This is a quarantine zone, you shouldn't be here, these, uh… creatures could be dangerous."

"Well then, ain't it a good thing I got ya'll two here protectin' me?" Amelia replied, smirking a little. "Don't worry, I don't need nothin' from _The Blob_ over there… so go ahead, do your thing."

Picking up a small stone, and tossing it so that it passed right through the FBC fence while skipping across the water several times, the brown haired woman seemed content to stare out at the ruins of her city while Jill and Parker were left to deal with these blobby… things. Standing there and looking at the nearest of them, the brunette thought about how nice it would have been to have some kind of futuristic scanning device that told her everything she needed to know about whatever it was pointed at, but sadly the BSAA's current budget barely paid for the car they used to get there.

"So, what do you think these things are?" The big man asked, poking it with a stick he found. "Some kind of mutant created from the aftermath of Terragrigia?"

"Hell if I know… Parker, stop doing that." Jill replied, pointing farther along its body. "If you _have_ to poke it, then use the stick to open its mouth a little."

Aside from the triangular opening where its pointed teeth could be seen, there were literally no other visible features on the mutated creature. The good news was that it wasn't posing much of a threat to anyone, aside from the constant assault on their sense of smell, but then the creature jerked suddenly just as Parker was pushing its discolored mouth open, causing the brunette to let out a startled yelp as she fell on her butt in the sand.

"Jesus, it's still alive!" She exclaimed, scooting backwards from it. "We're gonna need to take a sample, and bring it back to… _whoa_!"

Instead of simply flopping around for a second and then returning to its previous state of near-dormancy, the discolored monster lunged right toward her with its triangular mouth opened wide, or at least moving in a way that was probably _supposed_ to be a lunge. Flopping its front section around in all directions while snapping its jaws opened and closed, the creature's body was so large that even without being able to attack the brunette directly, she found it difficult to avoid… especially since she didn't have enough time to get to her feet.

"Parker, shoot it!" Jill exclaimed, continuing to scoot backwards from her attacker. "Shoot the damn thing!"

_Bang! Bang!_ The big man started shooting the monster all across its deformed body as soon as he could take aim, but again since the bloated creature was so big, and the two of them had only brought their service weapons, the monster was left undeterred. The brunette didn't have any more time to reach for her own pistol inside her jacket than she did to get up, so she just kept scooting backwards while Parker reloaded… only to gasp when she felt her back come to a stop against solid rock.

No, not just a solid rock, but a grouping of them that formed a kind of holding pen on all three sides, with the bloated creature filling up the forth as it got closer. With nowhere to go, and the big man's bullets not doing much at all to stop it, Jill's eyes could only get wide as she watched that awful triangular mouth get closer… until something suddenly grabbed her by the hair from behind. Unable to keep from letting out a scream of pain as something powerful lifted her up the side of the rock to safety while the monster was left trapped between the rocks, apparently unable to go backwards itself.

"Jill, are you all right?!" Parker yelled, looking up at her. "Did it hurt you?!"

"Relax, Mr. Luciani, your girlfriend's just fine." The voice of Amelia Ashland replied from behind her. "Ya gotta be more careful, sugar; Chris would just be _devastated_ if anythin' was to happen to you."

Even as the brown haired woman helped Jill to her feet and spun her around to start brushing her off, it took the brunette a second to realize that this slender little girl had somehow managed to lift her up by her hair. Granted, Jill didn't exactly have a weight problem herself, but still, apparently Ms. Ashland was a lot stronger than her small frame suggested. Still a little in shock while the stuck creature below gurgled and flopped around, the brunette was only dimly aware of how handsy her rescuer was getting while brushing her off, mostly just grateful to be alive while they climbed down on the other side of the rocks.

Jill hated to admit it, but ever since facing down that pursuer thing in the last days of Raccoon City, sometimes she thought of herself as being invincible, and it took a close call like this one to sometimes break her out of that fantasy. She had to keep reminding herself that it was mostly luck that allowed her to survive each encounter with _the STARS hunter_ back then, so she made sure to thank Amelia as soon as they got down, even though it felt like her hair was going to be ripped out during the rescue.

"Aw, weren't nothin', sugar." The brown haired woman replied, suddenly pulling her in for a _really_ tight hug. "Ya know, I once looked after Chris's sister sorta like this, and…

Her words and the whole awkward moment were interrupted when the radios that both Jill and Parker were wearing suddenly went off, with the voice of O'Brian trying to reach them. In all that had been going on since their arrival at the shore, the brunette had completely forgotten to check in with headquarters, not that there was all that much to report aside from the fact that these bloated, deformed mutant things were prone to attacking people. The big man answered first, giving the Director a quick rundown of their findings, and starting to suggest that a more heavily armed team be sent in to deal with the creatures, before he was interrupted again.

"_We've lost contact with Chris_." O'Brian's voice said with a grim tone. "_I'm sorry to cut your investigation short, but you two are the BSAA's only experienced assets left in the area_."

"In the area? I don't understand, O'Brian." Jill said into her own radio. "If you sent Chris and Jessica way up north for their mission, how can me and Parker do anything from down _here_?"

Once the Director was able to continue his explanation, it became clear that the other team had made their way back down to the Mediterranean at some point in the last few days, and that now Jill and the big man were literally the closest agents to Chris's last known location. O'Brian was pretty vague as to the reasons for the other team being back in this part of the world, but then again that was probably more to do with not letting anyone know about the rumors of some of Veltro's leaders surviving.

"We can't just leave; these things are _hostile_ down here." Jill continued, looking back at the creature that was still stuck. "They need to be contained."

"_I'm having local police block off that whole shoreline, it's the best we can do right now_." The Director's voice explained. "_Now both of you get back here on the double_."

All of this secrecy was frustrating, but the last thing anyone wanted was another panic getting started, so the brunette just had to accept the fact that she couldn't be told anything else until the briefing back at headquarters. The strangest part, though, was how calm Amelia was, considering that she had just overheard the possibility that Chris was in danger. No time to figure that out, either, the brunette decided as she and Parker headed back toward the car, and hopefully the local police would be quick about containing those creatures, before someone got hurt.


	7. Chapter 7 Last Known Location

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Seven: Last Known Location**

_Somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

Upon returning to headquarters in Birzebbuga, the Director had gotten straight to the point; being able to divulge more information to Jill and Parker now that they were in a private setting. Based on the data received by his tracker, Chris Redfield had for reasons unknown, left the region of suspected Veltro activity, and returned to the Mediterranean. Since this sudden shift in location, there had been no radio contact with him or Jessica, and then the signal just stopped moving out in the middle of nowhere.

Deviating from mission parameters wasn't like Chris at all, Jill thought during the briefing… so if he and Jessica had really gone that far off track, there had to be a pretty good reason, especially if there hadn't been any radio contact. Unfortunately, the only way for them to find out what that reason was, was to head out to the Agent's last known location and investigate… and the current budget only allowed for the one plane that Chris had used to head north, leaving the brunette in her current predicament.

"It shouldn't be much longer now." The big man said, taking a glance down at the monitor showing Chris's tracker. "But hey, at least we have good weather, right?"

Sure, the weather _itself_ was fine, Jill thought, having to close her eyes for a second and hold on as they were thrust upward by a larger wave. She had never liked the water, even as a kid, and had thus been forced to swallow hard when O'Brian told her that the only way they could afford to head out into the sea was by boat. Not a sea-plane, nor even a cutter like many nation's Coast Guards used… but a small fishing boat that the Director swore that the BSAA owned, even though it looked like something he rented last minute on the cheap.

The good news was that the motor worked, and that the front most part was enclosed, at least partially, giving the brunette a break from the wind and having to watch waves moving up and down, even though she still had to _feel_ each one. It was funny; traveling by land or air never made her feel the slightest bit nauseous or dizzy, no matter what kind of craziness happened, but on the water… _ugh_, why did the God damn ocean have to move so much, anyway? Closing her eyes again after passing over an even larger wave, all Jill knew right now was that the missing Agent better have a _real_ good excuse for all this.

Again thanks to the small size of Malta, only a few hours had passed between leaving the Freeport and right now, meaning that there was plenty of daylight left _and_ the weather was calm… yeah, if she and Parker had been told to do this at night during a storm or something… she might have handed in her resignation. Well, it wasn't as if she was _afraid_ of the water or anything, it was just that sometimes, er… okay, _every time_ the brunette was on a boat and there were waves that knocked it about… _ugh_… yeah, gotta think about something else… hey, what was _that_?

"We're coming up on Chris's last known location now." Parker reported, looking down at the screen again. "In a couple minutes we should be right on top of him."

Jill had expected to see a downed plane or a life raft or something, but instead there was a small dark colored object on the horizon that quickly got bigger as they approached. It was a ship… a really big ship, like one of those luxury cruise liners she always saw in commercials on TV, but as their small craft came alongside of the metal giant, the brunette could see that this one was not at all like the others. Although appearing to be mostly new, the once bright colored paint on the hull was starting to fade, and there was no music playing nor any passengers seen moving around on the upper decks.

"Hey, Parker?" She asked as they slowly circled around to the front of the ship. "Did you ever read the file on the _Starlight Incident_ a few years ago?"

"I only had a chance to skim it." The big man replied. "Wasn't that the one where a Raccoon City survivor infected a whole cruise ship with a virus? I think I heard somewhere that you knew the guy responsible."

That was one way of putting it, Jill thought while looking at the visible parts of the empty, silent ship. At first she couldn't believe it herself that Tobias Liquid, the head of RPD Homicide Division before the outbreak, had gone crazy enough to cause the deaths of hundreds of people onboard that ship back in… 2001, was it? But after reading the reports from both Barry Burton and Claire's friend, Leon Kennedy, there was no denying it… and until reading the report, Jill hadn't even known that the Lieutenant survived Raccoon City.

"Tobias was always a little _out there_, even _before_ the Cannibal Murders." The brunette said, looking the ship over with her compact binoculars. "I'm not sure how he went from being comatose in the hospital, to becoming a bioterrorist with _superpowers_, but… I sure would've loved to see Barry shoot him."

"No love lost between you then?" Parker asked with a sarcastic snort. "Well, the report said that guy went down with the ship, so I don't think you have to worry about ever seeing him again… hold on, we're coming around the bow."

Having to increase speed to get around the very front of the drifting ship, Jill held on again while the sea's waves seemed to be getting their revenge on her for that moment of distraction where she wasn't feeling seasick. This feeling became worse as the big man turned the wheel hard enough for their small craft to swing around to the other side of the cruise liner, but then thankfully they were able to slow down again. Taking a quick look at the tracker screen herself, Jill realized that this large ship was in the same place as where Chris was supposed to be, but… what the hell was he doing on an old cruise liner?

"Of course, Chris would be somewhere like _this_." Parker grumbled, steering slightly away from the ship's hull. "I was hoping for a life raft or something, but now I gotta find a place to tie us off."

While the big man handled that part, which involved a lot more steering back and forth, as well as getting bounced by a lot more waves, the brunette decided to distract herself once again by reporting the find to headquarters. Keeping her eyes closed for a second each time a wave passed, Jill picked up the receiver on the boat's radio, and tried to ignore her nauseous feelings while turning the power on. All in all, there wasn't too much for her to report just yet, aside from the presence of the ship itself, along with the name of the vessel… which she had to wait until they were far enough away to be able to see it written in blocky, black letters along the side.

"The ship's called the _Queen Zenobia_." She reported, holding on again as they passed through a wave. "So far there's no sign of passengers or crew, and the ship seems to be drifting, but Chris's tracker _definitely_ says that he's somewhere onboard."

"_Hold on a sec, I'm checking the local cruise lines_." O'Brian's voice replied through the static. "_Website's loading now… man, Windows XP is getting slow; I'm thinking of upgrading us to Vista if we get a bigger budget… okay, none of the local lines have any ships active this time of year. You'll have to get onboard and investigate_."

Of course, we will, Jill thought as the conversation ended, but at least Parker had finally stopped having to jerk the boat around so much. After searching up and down almost the entire length of the Queen Zenobia, the big man located a place to tie off their small boat, but as far as getting onboard the cruise liner itself, it looked like they were going to have to climb all the way up there. Thankfully, small grappling hooks were standard issue for missions like this, especially after the reports that such a device saved Leon Kennedy's life during his mission in Spain when the US President's daughter was kidnapped.

Even though it was tied off, the small boat was rocking enough to make throwing the hooks more difficult than it should have been, with Parker laughing about how Jill missed on her first try. The laughter stopped when he missed right after, along with another miss on his second attempt while the brunette managed to hook hers on the railing of the deck above. The waves were getting worse now, but they weren't moving the larger ship around as much, making Jill glad to begin her climb, as well as amused that Parker was still having trouble throwing his hook.

"_Planning on stayin' with the boat, Mr. Luciani_?" The brunette asked in a mock of Ms. Ashland's accent. "_That's fine, but Chris would just be devastated if somethin' happened to me_."

"Ha, ha, very funny." The big man replied, stopping a moment to give her the middle finger. "And you can keep laughing when I beat you up there."

With another, more powerful toss of his hook, the metal object latched itself onto the railing next to Jill's, and then without a moment of hesitation, Parker began to climb. At first the brunette wasn't threatened at all by his challenge for a race, but then she was shocked at how quickly he was able to start making his way up the side of the Queen Zenobia, for a man his size. There was no harm in a race, since finding Chris and Jessica quickly was the best idea, so she climbed as fast as she could… only to find herself dropping farther and farther behind.

Before she knew it, Parker was pulling himself up over the railing and onto the deck, while several more seconds passed before Jill was able to do the same. Instead of gloating and laughing at her right away for losing the contest even though she had a head start, the big man was scanning the deck for the presence of any threats… but there were none in sight. In fact, the upper deck of the Queen Zenobia was just as empty as the sides of it had seemed. Together they listened, but aside from the wind and the sound of waves moving below, there was just… nothing.

"How does a big, empty ship move around on its own without crashing?" She asked, looking around one more time. "And how did it get empty in the first place?"

"We can worry about that _after_ we find Chris." Parker replied, stopping again to give her a smirk. "Think you can keep up this time?"


	8. Chapter 8 Ooze

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Eight: Ooze**

_Queen Zenobia Crew Quarters_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

With a long screech, the partially rusted latch on the door turned open, allowing Jill and Parker to pass through into an area of the ship that was labeled as _Crew Quarters_. The Queen Zenobia didn't seem to be that old at all, in fact most of the décor and facilities that the two of them saw were quite modern, it was just that the cruise liner itself appeared to have been heavily neglected for a long time. The walls and floors had a thick layer of dust, and the railing of the metal stairwell was rusting underneath the chipped paint in some places, and so far the interior of the ship was just as empty as the outside.

"Hey Parker, check your readings for a second." The brunette said, stopping on the next step. "What are you picking up?"

As the two of them had approached the ship, Jill thought that she was only picking up one GPS tracker because Chris and Jessica were so close together, but now that the signal was coming in range, it was becoming clear that there was only one tracker being picked up. She hoped that her readings were simply wrong, but once the big man confirmed that he was only picking up one signal as well, the brunette couldn't help starting to worry. It could have been that either Chris or Jessica's trackers were broken or something, but it was probably best to simply find them instead of freaking out.

The signal was coming from the next level that they reached, so moving a little faster than she had before, Jill pushed her way through the door, only to cry out in surprise when her feet flew out from under her. Landing on her back with a loud _thud_ that echoed throughout the attached corridor, the brunette groaned from the resulting pain, rolling onto her side and then feeling a little embarrassed when Parker offered his hand to help her up… especially when he made a crack about her not landing so hard if she cut down on the coffee and donuts.

"Oh, that's _funny_, Parker." She said, not really having a comeback ready. "What the hell did I slip on?"

Whatever it was, the substance hadn't felt like water, and since the power in the ship was offline, the two of them needed to use the tiny flashlights mounted on their pistols to look down at the black, gooey substance that was on the sole of her boot. At first it looked like machine oil, but it was more slimy and runny, with a strange whitish color mixed into the blackness along with… oh God, the _smell _coming off the stuff was enough to make her gag.

Trying to breathe mostly through her mouth, the brunette was still getting little whiffs of the smell as she and Parker moved their flashlights around the corridor to find that the slimy ooze was all over both the floor and the wall. Pooled on the ground where Jill had slipped, it seemed to have traveled down the wall from… from inside of an air conditioning duct. The vent cover grating was covered with the stuff, so Parker pulled it loose and removed it so that they could see inside with their flashlights, but there was nothing in there except a small trail of the ooze, and a bunch of mold from the air conditioning system not being run in forever.

"Let's take a sample of this for O'Brian." The big man said, holstering his pistol so that he could take a small container from one of his pouches. "It might be nothing, but you never know when it comes to bioterrorism these days."

"Yeah, you go ahead." The brunette replied, stepping back from the puddle and looking farther down the corridor. "I'll, uh… keep watch."

It was important to keep watch while the sample was collected, even if she was just using it as an excuse to step away from the fowl smelling substance, but Parker was right about one thing… these days you just never knew when it came to bioterrorism. Back in the 90's if someone unleashed a virus, it simply turned people into zombies, with the occasional deformed monster showing up, but now… now apparently terrorist groups could get their hands on an entire _army_ of those Hunter things, and… it was actually hard to believe that the Spencer Estate could be looked at as _simpler times_.

The big man cursed from getting some of the stuff on his finger after closing the container, wiping it off on his pant leg while getting up, and then joining her to keep moving down the corridor. Each of the doors that they came across was unlocked, with most of them being old storage rooms or electrical closets, but not containing anything useful, at least not until the two of them entered one of the large sleeping quarters just as this part of the corridor came to an end.

Several sets of bunkbeds were placed around the large open room, with footlockers and wall cabinets added for the crew to store their possessions, but unlike the rest of the ship so far where everything was pristine but neglected… this place was trashed. The beds were overturned, and some of the cabinets had been knocked over as if the room had been ransacked, but the strange part was that there were plenty of valuables like money and other things that were just laying around, so apparently it wasn't a robbery… and then the brunette noticed the smell.

More of that discolored ooze was on the wall, seeming to have come out of the air conditioning duct like in the corridor, and covering one of the overturned beds and then leaving a faint trail all around the room with the slime getting on all of the overturned furniture. Moving her flashlight around at the trail, Jill noticed that some of the drag marks looked a lot like footprints, so… had something come out of the ducts? No, that was stupid because based on their size, even the feet that made the footprints would have been too large for the duct, let alone the rest of the owner.

"I don't get it." Parker said, looking at the trail more closely. "What the hell happened on this ship?"

Jill didn't have an answer for him, but the smell in this half of the room was just as bad as out in the corridor, so she suggested that for now they just move on. There was another door on the far end, presumably leading into another corridor, since the tracker signal was getting stronger all the time, so they headed toward it and the brunette was just about to grab the latch, when something moved. Something dark that suddenly came out of the shadows and made a kind of growling/gurgling sound as it tackled her to the floor.

Whatever this thing was, it was big; taller than her and clearly a hell of a lot stronger, since it was able to nearly lift her off her feet before they fell down, and… oh God, it smelled just like that slimy ooze. No, it didn't just smell like the stuff, its body was _coated _with it, so much so that Jill had a hard time getting a grip to keep the thing from attacking her. In the bit of reflected light that came from her pistol, which dropped from her hand when she fell, she could see that this thing was discolored and deformed… but didn't understand the horror of what she was dealing with until Parker's light fell onto it.

Most of its body resembled a human form, but bloated and deformed in places like how its hands had become what looked like flippers with claws on the front and sides, but its head was the _real _nightmare. Deformed so it looked like the skin had been ripped off and then reattached the wrong way so that the eyes and ears were completely covered, everything from its nose down to the jaw looked like it had been removed, replaced with a row of jagged, elongated teeth that it was trying to sink into her.

_Bang! Bang! Bang!_ The shots from Parker's pistol lit up the room as the bullets slammed into the monster's ribs, causing it to growl/gurgle again while sliding off of her onto the floor. Instead of blood, more of that slimy ooze poured out of the creature's wounds, but sealed up so quickly that the thing was getting ready to attack again by the time that Jill was able to grab her pistol and join in the fight.

_Bang! Bang!_ Aiming right at the abomination's forehead, each bullet she fired found its mark, releasing more of that ooze from inside. It was strange, though… the bullets didn't seem to be doing much damage, but the monster still held up its claws in a defensive manner as if in pain, before it retreated. Keeping their flashlights on it so that it couldn't surprise them from the shadows again, the two of them fired a couple more shots, missing with one or two, but still forcing the monster to retreat back toward the air conditioning duct.

As if it thought it was small enough to fit into the small duct, the monster placed its claws and head inside where the grate had been, before surprising the hell out of Jill and Parker by almost effortlessly sliding its way inside. Just like that, the monster was gone, vanished so far down into the ducts that it was no longer visible by the time that they were able to get over there and shine their flashlights inside. Again, it was strange because out of the dozens of mutated monsters that the brunette had fought over the years, none of them had ever _retreated_ from a fight before.

Oh God, the smell… it was _all over_ her. Now that the adrenaline from being attacked was wearing off, she realized that it had left that slimy ooze all over her shirt and her pants… Jesus, that stuff was fowl, and if Parker hadn't been standing there, she might have stripped naked just to be rid of it. Between the movements of the ship, how worried she was about Chris and Jessica, and the rancid stench of that ooze, all of Jill's willpower was required to keep her from vomiting right there on the floor.

"Come on… _ugh_… we gotta find Chris." She said, trying to breathe through her mouth while heading back toward the far door. "Him and Jessica might have been attacked by this thing, too."

Okay, the brunette thought as the door opened into another corridor, so the Queen Zenobia wasn't just an abandoned cruise liner, and now the rumors of Veltro's return were starting to sound pretty true. She just hoped that Chris and Jessica were okay, especially if they had encountered that same creature.


	9. Chapter 9 Not Alone Here

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Nine: Not Alone Here**

_Queen Zenobia Maintenance Decks_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

So far there had been no sign of that creature since encountering it inside that bunkroom, so Jill and Parker made their way through the rest of the crew quarters, and continued to follow the tracker's signal into the service corridors. This area of the ship looked more like the basement of a factory, with pipes running along the ceiling, and no one bothering to put any paint over the wall's mixture of bare concrete and metal. There were no windows at all in this section, leaving their small flashlights as the only source of light, causing the two of them to have to advance slowly.

"The signal's getting closer." Jill reported, continuing to steal quick glances at the screen. "I hope they're okay."

"None of us will be okay if that creature comes back." Parker replied, taking a look behind them just in case. "I just hope it stays somewhere else until we get back to the boat."

The brunette agreed, keeping a sharp lookout for it herself as they rounded a corner, coming face to face with a metal door that was a lot sturdier looking than the others that they had seen… and the tracker's signal was coming from right behind it. Unlike all the other doors that were unlocked so far, this one was securely bolted so that it didn't even shake at all when Jill tried the latch. The words _MAIL ROOM_ were painted above the door, explaining why it was so secure, but Jesus, some ships still did _mail runs_ these days? Really?

One last feature stuck out about the whole setup, and that was the small slot in the middle of the door that could be used to drop in letters. So with the big man keeping watch for that creature, or anything else that might have been onboard, the brunette knelt down so that she could look through the slot when she opened the door. It was a little awkward trying to see through while pointing her pistol-mounted flashlight, but there was definitely something… no, _someone_ in there.

"What is it?" Parker asked in reaction to her sudden gasp. "Can you see something?"

"It's Chris, er… it _might_ be." Jill replied, getting frustrated at not being able to see better. "Jesus, Parker, there's someone tied to a damn _chair_; we gotta get this door open."

Inside the darkened room, she had seen a metal folding chair set up in the center of the floor, but it was facing away from the door, so she couldn't be sure who the shirtless man tied to it was. The body type was similar to Chris, and the hair was the same color, but his head was hanging down and the prisoner did not respond when she called out to him. Whether or not it was their comrade, she wasn't about to just _leave_ someone tied to a chair like that… but the fact that this person was tied there in the first place meant that someone else… someone _human_ was onboard this ship.

After getting to her feet, the two of them tried using their shoulders to force the door open, but it didn't budge, nor was the brunette able to use her lock pick when she tried, since it felt like the tumblers inside the lock were starting to rust a little and couldn't be forced. Whoever had designed this door had been serious about no one being able to break in, leaving the two of them no choice but to find the key, and it wasn't like the prisoner was going anywhere, but she still felt bad for having to just leave him like that.

"Come on, we gotta find a janitor's closet or something." Jill said, continuing farther down the hallway. "Then we need to get back to the boat and call for backup."

If they could find a janitor's closet, then the door would be a lot easier to force, and then they could use the master keys inside to open any door on the Queen Zenobia that they wanted. This was a little trick that she had actually learned from Tobias during her brief undercover period before getting picked for the STARS unit, but it only worked in public places where security was lax enough for the janitors to leave their keys hanging up. Hopefully, this ship was one of those places, because the place was massive, and she had no idea where the main security office was.

Moving farther away from the mail room, this section of the hallway ended at another stairwell, beginning to take them down into what must have been the engineering section of the ship. If the power had been on, this area would have been loud as hell, at least if it really was the engineering section… was kind of hard to tell without a map or power being on so she could see all the details of the area around her, but so far there still hadn't been a single janitor's closet or security check point or anything.

_Clang-clang_! A sudden sound of falling metal reached their ears as Jill and Parker reached the bottom of this stairwell, like someone who wasn't looking where they were going had just knocked something over… someone who was now trying to run away just as the flashlight beams fell onto them. The brunette only caught a fleeting glimpse of the person running away, enough to tell that it was a woman… kinda tall, and wearing maybe a wetsuit?

"Hey you, stop!" Jill yelled, her old police instincts kicking in as she ran after her. "Get back here!"

Running at full speed through a darkened corridor with obstacles was a little harder now than when she was twenty three, especially while chasing someone who was probably around that age herself, with how easily she was avoiding everything in her path to stay ahead of her pursuers. But Jill managed to stay on her, at least enough to keep the mystery woman's frame in the farthest edges of her flashlight, and… how in the fuck was she moving that fast without a flashlight of her own?

Parker was heard falling behind; apparently the big man wasn't as fast on his feet as he was in climbing a wall, leaving the brunette to catch the mystery woman all on her own. Jill moved as fast as she could, hissing with pain when her hip glanced off a vertical pipe that ran along the wall, and then cursing loudly when the mystery woman ran through a door, only to slam it right into the brunette's face.

She locked it from the other side before Jill could even try turning the wheel to unlock this heavy metal hatch, but maybe there was another way around… yeah, that could work. So she aimed her small flashlight along the wall, only to discover that it was actually a large window next to her that went into the room where the mystery woman had fled. The Plexiglas was way too thick to break or even shoot through, but it did allow her to see that the mystery woman's luck wasn't much better at the moment.

Although Jill couldn't get to her, this blonde haired woman was struggling to turn the wheel on the identical hatch on the other side of the room, but it was stuck or rusted or something, meaning that she was trapped inside of that station that looked sort of like the water treatment control room she had seen years ago in Raccoon City while running from the Pursuer. It was a useless place, since the monitors and machines were all powerless, so the brunette tapped on the window with her pistol to get the mystery woman's attention.

"Door's rusted, huh? That sucks." She said, one hand on her bruised hip while catching her breath. "So how about you put any weapons you got on that panel… and come out here with your hands up, and… and I promise not to shoot you in the leg for making me run like that. Come on, now."

When the blonde woman turned around so that she was fully in the beam of Jill's flashlight, the brunette got to see that it was because of night vision goggles that she was able to move so well without a light of her own. Because of the light, this woman was forced to remove them, and… nope, Jill had never seen her before in her life, just a… tall blonde woman in a wetsuit with a 9mm pistol in her hand. So was she going to do the smart thing and surrender, or was she just going to stay in there?

Please don't just stay in there, the brunette thought, knowing that there was no way for her to go in and force the mystery woman to come out. Meanwhile, Parker finally caught up with them, breathing heavily and having to lean against the wall to catch his breath, but the blonde woman still hadn't moved while the big man was coughing up a lung. Great, now not only did they have no way to release that prisoner from the mail room, but now they needed to find a way to open that hatch before… what the hell was that?

"Hey!" Jill called, pounding on the window again and pointing. "Behind you! Is that… oh shit, get outta there! Come on, get out of there _now_! Open the hatch!"

The mystery woman didn't seem to get it at first, but then she slowly turned around just in time to see the vent cover of the air conditioning vent fall to the floor. When the brunette had first noticed it, there was only some of that discolored ooze dripping down the wall, but now that same creature that had attacked them before was crawling its way out of the duct. With a wet _smack_ it fell to the floor, with the blonde woman aiming her pistol and starting to shoot while it was getting up, but something was wrong… for some reason this time it didn't retreat when her bullets slammed into its flesh.

_Bang! Bang! Bang!_ Firing until her weapon was empty, each bullet caused more of that ooze stuff to spill out from the hole it made in the creature's body, but this time it just walked right through as if not noticing that it was being shot. It also seemed like the creature itself was off balance due to the bloated and deformed parts of its body, because its walk was more like a sideways stumble, at least until it leapt onto the blonde woman, tackling her to the floor like it had done to Jill.

"No!" The brunette screamed, banging on the window to try and get its attention. "Get away from her!"

_Bang_! While the mystery woman was screaming and flailing around from the monster's teeth sinking into her neck, Jill aimed at the window and fired in an attempt to break through, but only resulted in her and Parker jumping when the bullet ricocheted off the Plexiglas and struck one of the pipes behind them. By this time the blonde woman was no longer screaming, and as soon as she stopped moving, the creature seemed to lose interest… stumbling back toward the duct, and then vanishing inside as quickly as it had appeared.


	10. Chapter 10 The Mail Room

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Ten: The Mail Room**

_Queen Zenobia Engineering Decks_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

Moving quickly back down the darkened corridors of the Queen Zenobia's engineering decks, Jill was more than a bit disturbed in how the creature had changed from the first encounter less than an hour before. It was bad enough that it had killed that mystery woman like that and retreated back into the ducts, but why was it that her bullets didn't even phase the thing? From what the brunette was able to see, she and the blonde woman had been using virtually the same kind of pistol, so… had this monster somehow adapted to what it was being attacked with?

If so, that plus its ability to move anywhere throughout the entire ship via the air conditioning ducts made it a pretty dangerous enemy, and right now that prisoner they had seen back in the mail room was completely helpless. Again, Parker was struggling to keep up with her, especially when they got back to the stairwell; the big man huffing and puffing while she sprinted along. Truth be told, if Chris's life wasn't possibly in danger, Jill wouldn't have been able to go up them so fast either, but like she said, it was Chris… maybe.

"Jill, slow down a bit!" Parker called from behind, between breaths. "We don't… want to be separated… if that thing comes back!"

But there was no stopping the brunette as she rounded the last corner and went back through the hatch into the crew quarters, because even though the big man was right and they could be attacked again at any moment if that slimy thing showed up again, the prisoner was helpless right now no matter what. That, in addition with them being unable to find a key to the mail room, which that mystery woman probably had with her luck, the two of them not only had to get back to the door in time, but also find a way to get it open.

Unfortunately, Jill was so out of breath herself by the time she got down the hallways and reached the entrance to the mail room, that she had to bend forward with her hands on her knees to not fall over. Heaving and coughing a little as she leaned against the wall a bit, the brunette was glad that there hadn't been very many stairs to contend with when she was running from that pursuer thing back in Raccoon City, or she might have been in trouble. Okay, there was no screaming or other creature-related noises coming from inside the room, so it was fine to wait for Parker now… yeah, not that she had much choice with how hard she was breathing.

The good news was that by the time her partner got there, Jill had caught her breath and was fine, looking like she could run up and down flights of stairs like that all day, while Parker was dripping sweat and looking like he was going to pass out. He tried to continue the speech about the two of them needing to stay together, but couldn't put the words together between his labored breaths and eventually gave up. The important thing right now was that they were together again, and now they needed to find a way to get this door…

"Hey Parker, look at this." The brunette said, noticing something after taking another look at the door. "This wasn't like that before, right? I'm not crazy?"

"No, it was definitely _not_ like that before." The big man replied once he caught his breath enough to look. "Why else would we have gone through all that trouble downstairs?"

It was the door itself that had changed, not because of how it was built or anything, but because where it had been securely locked before, there was now a half-inch gap between it and the doorframe as if someone had left it like that on purpose. However, there was no one around, and it certainly hadn't been the blonde woman downstairs who unlocked it, but… but there were still no signs of anyone else being there. And if the door had been unlocked while the two of them were downstairs… then what happened to the prisoner?

"Do you think they moved him?" The big man asked, not wanting to just kick open the door. "Are we too late?"

"Only one way to find out." She replied, each of them moving to the opposite side of the door in case someone started shooting or something. "But be careful, if that woman downstairs was one of them, then they might think we killed her and be spooked."

Slowly reaching her hand out and carefully pushing the door open, there was a drawn out _squeak_ of its hinges as it swung inward, allowing the beams of their small flashlights to fully shine into the room… where the prisoner remained in the same position he had been in before. Jill's first instinct was to rush over and see if it was Chris and if he was all right, but everything they had seen onboard the Queen Zenobia suggested that there could be hidden dangers, so they took it slow.

First checking for some kind of trip-wires of pressure plates on the floor, or anything else that could be used to stop a prisoner from being rescued, the brunette found nothing. From what she could see there were no traps, and without power the ship's cameras were useless, so she and Parker slowly walked around so that they were standing in front of the shirtless man; shining their flashlights on him to see that… this person was definitely _not _Chris Redfield. The tracker's signal stopped right there, but there was no sign of the Agent or Jessica, just… just this thing that looked like a painted… _department store mannequin_.

"What the hell is going on here?" Parker asked, lightly pushing the mannequin so that it fell over onto the floor. "Why would someone make up one of these things to look like Chris?"

"I don't know." The brunette replied, becoming more worried about their comrades' safety. "But his tracker's here, so he's gotta be somewhere near…

Suddenly there was a shadow of movement from over near the door, causing Jill and the big man to shine their flashlights just in time to see someone tossing something into the room with them. The intruder ran away as soon as the two objects left his hand, leaving the two of them to follow the small metal balls as they rolled across the floor toward them… and went off. _Pop-hisssssssss! _The top of the object near Parker went off first, and Jill had just realized that they were grenades, when the top broke off of hers as well, allowing a concentrated spray of what looked like smoke to blast her right in the face.

Reflexively breathing in from surprise, the brunette sucked in a lungful of the smoke, which she expected was tear gas at first, but it didn't burn… instead it made her vision start to blur for a second while it was getting harder to move. Oh shit, its knockout gas, she thought, trying to warn Parker, but only taking in more when she tried, but thankfully the big man got the hint when his own movements became sluggish and uncoordinated.

He tried to run for the door, but since it was getting hard to see, Parker ran right into the chair the mannequin had been sitting on, causing him to fall on his face and take an even deeper breath of the gas. Jill tried to help him up, but she was losing strength pretty fast herself, forcing her to run out of the room while he passed out. She wasn't leaving him, but in her current state the brunette couldn't do anything to help… she had to get to the surface deck for some fresh air before she passed out… had to use their boat's radio to call for backup.

Even though she had escaped the mail room, Jill had taken several breaths of the gas, making her vision tilt to the side and making her have to lean heavily against the wall as she passed back through the bunk room where they had first met that creature. Thank God it wasn't there now, but then her hand hit against the frame of one of the bunks, causing her to drop the pistol somewhere on the floor, leaving her in darkness. For a second she considered searching for it, but with as hard as it was getting to move, the brunette knew that if she got down on the floor now, she wouldn't be able to get back up.

"Keep going, Jill… you can do this." She said to herself, the words coming out slowly and slurred together as if she were drunk. "Keep moving… come on, girl, keep moving."

Now wandering through complete darkness, Jill only found the door since it was the only feature on the otherwise flat wall on the other side of the room, and now there was light because she and Parker had left the door to the surface deck open a little. Stumbling her way toward it, the only thing she could see upon getting outside was the intense blur of sunlight, and if the guardrail hadn't been there to hit against her waist, the brunette might have tumbled over the edge and into the ocean.

Gotta find the rope and climb down, she thought to herself, struggling to feel along the railing without falling down, gotta find… _BOOM_! Suddenly there was the blurry and muffled flash of something far below going up in flames, and even though Jill could barely see or hear anything, somehow she just knew that it was the small boat that she and Parker had arrived on. Man, they had been so _stupid_ to go there alone… O'Brian was right, this all had to be the work of Veltro, since no random creature could use grenades or blow up escape vehicles.

But now what was she going to do? Without the boat, there was no way to radio headquarters to send help, and now she was unarmed and… falling backwards away from the railing as the knockout gas was starting to win. Instead of hitting the deck hard, however, someone was there to catch her, someone who gently laid her down on the wooden surface, and then looked down at her through the… was he wearing a _gas mask_?

"No." She said weakly, trying to lift her arms but failing as her whole body relaxed. "No… get away… help… Parker."

"_Don't fight it, Ms. Valentine, just go to sleep_." He said through the mask as everything started to get dark. "_It is time for you to discover the truth_."


	11. Chapter 11 The Frozen North

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Eleven: The Frozen North**

_Somewhere in the European Mountains_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

"All right, we'll rest here for a few minutes, and then get back at it." Chris Redfield said, his breath visible after removing the scarf from around his mouth. "At least we get a little cover from the wind."

"A few minutes; shit, give me an hour." His partner, Jessica Sherawat grumbled while pulling her hood closer to her ears. "Why can't the terrorists ever hide in someplace like _Maui_, huh?"

The Agent agreed with her, but the fact was that groups like Veltro always hid where people were less likely to find them… cowards who conducted sneak attacks on peaceful cities and then scurried away like cockroaches when the light it turned on. Still, it wouldn't have hurt for O'Brian's Intel to have been a little more specific than _just take Jessica and go investigate this one specific pass in the mountains for signs of Veltro related activity_. Aside from their orders, which were vague as hell, a mountain pass could be huge, and the weather wasn't doing them any favors.

Even though the sun was high in the sky, snow was falling in big, heavy flakes that became almost like a fog bank when being blown around in the wind. Heavy winter gear had been issued to both of them, as well as a satellite radio that the young woman was carrying, and the usual things like a map and a compass. None of these things were helpful in a storm where the wind seemed to force its way right through the heaviest clothing, where things like maps and compasses were useless, and even the radio's signal was being blocked.

After several hours of climbing and searching, an old cabin was discovered, or at least what was left of it, so they decided to take shelter. The roof and walls of the place were intact, but the shutters on the windows had long since been destroyed, leaving several inches of snow on the floor throughout the place. No furniture or supplies remained, so the two of them leaned their _M4 Assault Rifles_ against one of the wooden walls and sat down so that their heads were lower than the windows.

"This is _great_, isn't it?" Jessica asked, breathing on her hands while rubbing them together. "You and me, up in the mountains during a blizzard, chasing ghosts… if I'd known you were taking me to such a _romantic _spot, I would've worn lipstick."

"That's _real_ funny, Jessica." The Agent replied, opening one of his pouches. "Here, take one of these."

The young woman's mood went from sarcastic to overjoyed when she realized that the small packet he had tossed her was a Hand Warmer, and then Jessica sighed with relief as soon as she broke the seal and shook up the contents. Chris did the same for his own hands, and was damn grateful that he had brought them, but he couldn't take all the credit… after all, it had been his girlfriend's idea. Some people thought Amelia was a little overbearing, but personally the Agent thought it was sweet how much she cared about his wellbeing.

"So you two are pretty serious now, huh?" The young woman asked, shivering a little when the wind increased. "You and _Ms. Ashland_… it's funny, when I met you, I didn't take you for the type who would go for spoiled billionaires. Hell, I thought if anything, you would want someone like Jill Valentine."

"What… Jill?" Chris asked as if surprised by the question. "No, we were never a thing… we were in STARS together, and she helped me look after my sister once in a while, but there's nothing between us. Besides, I think she still sees that guy, uh… _Carlo_, or something."

Jessica continued to tease him a bit, making a small snowball and tossing it at him, while telling him that she didn't believe it. How could he work that closely with someone as good looking as Jill and _never_ fool around with her, not even _once_? It was true, though, nothing had ever happened between them, and honestly Amelia Ashland was the only woman that the Agent had been with since 1998. Chris had lost the love of his life back then; forced to destroy Alexia Ashford in order to save his sister, and then nothing until meeting Amelia during the inspection tour of Terragrigia.

"I wasn't trying to upset you, Chris." The young woman said, losing her playful attitude. "It's just… it's so rare to find a man as loyal as you… there's a lot of women out where who might try to steal you from her just to have it themselves."

"Well, if a man cheats on someone to be with you, what stops him from cheating again?" He asked, leaning back against the wall. "Besides, there's a ton of good guys out there… what about your friend, Parker?"

Jessica just looked at him for a second, and then burst out laughing, having to lean back on the wall herself for a second, and then making another snowball. She hit him with it in the shoulder, and this time Chris made his own snowball for a counter attack. However, he was just about to throw it, when a new sound reached his ears… one that was powerful enough to be heard even over the storm.

It started low, like the buzzing of a small engine, but quickly increased to the point of being almost deafening, forcing the Agent to cover his ears as he looked up toward the window just in time to see something massive go flying overhead. He had only seen it for a second, being able to tell that it was both made of metal and on fire, with the sound continuing on past the cabin for a couple seconds before an explosion lit up the sky.

_BOOM_! For a moment the cabin walls shook while the blizzard was overcome with flames, and then everything was quiet again like nothing happened. But something had happened, and the only thing Chris knew that could cause an impact like that was a crashing airplane… or a missile. The missile idea was stupid because there was no reason for it to happen, so a plane must have crashed nearby, and not someone's tiny little personal aircraft… but more likely a _big_ one.

Grabbing his rifle and then rushing out the door into the wind, the increased cold took the Agent by surprise for a second, but then he realized that any evidence of the whole event had just disappeared. The wind was getting louder, and the snow was getting heavier, forcing him to go back into the cabin to get his bearings, and then bumping right into Jessica just as she was coming out to join him. Using the position of the window he had seen the plane from, Chris was able to tell which direction it was going, and from there… well, just keep following that path with the compass.

"Chris, wait up!" The young woman called from behind as he went farther up the pass. "Chris, slow down… damn it, my legs aren't as long as yours!"

But the Agent didn't stop or slow down, in fact he just kept trudging and climbing his way through the snow and rocks, toward the one thing he could see that could be followed… black smoke. It took several minutes for him to get to the top of the rocks he was climbing, and even more for Jessica to reach him; immediately bending forward to catch her breath while complaining about how badly her feet hurt. Unfortunately, there were still rocks and snow between them and the source of the black smoke.

"We're still not high enough." Chris said, looking around for the best way up. "Come on, just a little more."

"Just give me a second here." She replied when he started walking again. "I need to catch my breath… Chris… damn it, wait a second!"

He partly heard Jessica cursing as he resumed the climb, or maybe she had been cussing him out, the Agent wasn't sure… but the black smoke was getting clearer, and now he could smell the distinct scent of jet fuel. Yeah, the tanks on the bird must have been pretty full, because the scent was heavy in the air, along with the metallic taste forming in his mouth that came from certain types of transmission oil. It seemed to be taking forever to reach the top of the ridge, with the wind doing its best to prevent him from getting there, but eventually his hand found flat ground, allowing Chris to pull himself up onto the ridge, and… damn.

Jessica was a good ways behind him, but when she finally dragged herself up on top of the ridge, huffing and puffing to catch her breath, the young woman was stopped in the middle of the first word of chewing him out, when she gasped at the sight that was down below. It was a plane crash, all right; the snow was all but melted in a large circle around where the wreckage had come to a stop down in the valley after sliding a short distance, and now a lot of the surrounding rocks were on fire, probably from the leaking fuel tanks.

The one remaining engine on what looked like a large cargo plane was on fire, too, with the metal red hot and releasing most of the black smoke that was rising up into the sky. The explosion had been so intense that the air where Chris and Jessica were standing was a little warmer than back at the cabin, and they were a good distance away from the crash site. From there, it was doubtful that anyone onboard could have survived, but the wreckage still needed to be investigated.

"Chris, there's no shipping lanes over this part of the mountains, O'Brian checked." The young woman said, still staring down at the burning wreckage. "So what the hell is a transport plane like that doing all the way out here?"

"I don't know." The Agent replied, looking for a way for them to get down there for a closer look. "See if you can contact HQ from up here, and then follow me down.

There was no shelter from the wind up there, but Jessica still took out the radio and knelt down in the snow to try and avoid some of it while taking out her small radio. Hopefully she would be able to tell O'Brian what was going on, whether or not this plane had anything to do with the possibly resurrected Veltro group. So he started down, being careful to choose his path very carefully while making his way down toward the wreckage of the plane.


	12. Chapter 12 Caution Live Animals

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Twelve: Caution Live Animals**

_Crash Site, European Mountains_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

The air got warmer quickly as Chris and Jessica made their way down into the valley where the cargo plane had crashed, heating up to the point where they both had to remove their hoods by the time they reached the point where the snow was melted. It was a good thing that they had brought along goggles to prevent getting snow-blind, because now they needed them in order to see around the brightly lit wreckage, discovering firstly that the plane had sheered itself in half upon impact, with a short distance between the two pieces.

Flames engulfed the cargo area, with the remaining engine shooting out sparks as if it were still active, but there was no way to search around inside the hold to see what the plane was carrying… at least not until Chris discovered the cage. Appearing to have been tossed from the plane during the crash, it was one of those industrial containers that read _CAUTION LIVE ANIMALS_, while also being marked with a _biohazard _symbol, which was never a good sign these days. However, the container was empty, which made the Agent feel a little better… until he saw why.

After checking around the container and finding that the barred door was intact, the entire wall on the opposite side was not, meaning that if anything had been being transported inside the crate, there was a chance that it was now loose. But hey, who knows? Maybe he would get lucky and it would have been empty from the start. Unfortunately, the next thing Jessica pointed out was a set of tracks visible in some of the sift dirt next to the cage… very _large_ tracks that almost looked like it belonged to a dog.

"God damn it." The Agent grumbled to himself, getting his rifle ready. "Eyes open, Jessica, we might have trouble."

The young woman readied her weapon as well, with the two of them looking around the landscape for whatever had made those tracks, but there was no sign of it. The bad news was that even if the thing didn't attack them outright, Jessica had still been unable to contact headquarters, so the two of them were going to have to hunt it down and deal with it before some mountain climber got killed by… whatever was in that container.

Moving around the crash site slowly while watching each other's backs, the Agent was leading them toward the other half of the cargo plane, which luckily wasn't on fire. Maybe the pilot was still alive, or at least the aircraft's flight plan would still be there so that Chris could find out what they were carrying, and where they were going. Climbing up into the front half, and then giving Jessica a hand, the Agent told her to watch their backs while he went up into the cockpit.

The pilot was still inside; a man wearing dark fatigues and a face mask, strapped into the chair… but something big and sharp had torn its way into his torso, leaving huge bloody drag marks all the way across from his hip to the opposite shoulder. Needless to say, the masked man was dead, leaning back in the partially ripped seat with an expression of horror frozen into his face… but at least now Chris knew that something bad had definitely been inside that secured container.

"Flight plan, flight plan… excuse me." The Agent said, having to move the pilot's leg in order to reach a bag on the floor. "Okay, what do we have? Maps, flare gun, all right the flight plan."

Stuffing the flare gun inside his jacket, Chris opened the flight plan and saw that although the part with the takeoff point was ripped out, it looked like the plane's destination was someplace called _Valkoinen Mokki Airport_. He had never heard of such a place, but according to the map it was really close by… like, _really_ close as in only a couple miles from their current location. All right, well if the plane was involved with Veltro, then the airport was the next place to investigate when…

"Chris!" Jessica yelled, interrupting his thoughts. "Chris, get back here!"

Dropping the flight plan and readying his rifle, the Agent ran back over to the end of the plane's front section, where the young woman was aiming her rifle toward… nothing. She insisted that something had moved over by the burning engine, but even with the darkened goggles on, everything was so bright that it was impossible to see if anything was there. For a moment Chris thought that maybe they should go over there and check it out, but that thought was interrupted when something slammed into the side of the plane's hull hard enough to almost make them lose their footing.

_Wham_! It was like a wrecking ball was being swung into the wall of the plane next to where he and Jessica were standing, leaving inward dents when the second hit made the Agent have to grab onto a support to keep from falling over. _Wham_! That third hit was even harder from the others, coming several seconds later and from the other side as if the source of it had taken the time to run all the way around the plane just to put them off balance… jarring him from the support and causing Chris to tumble face first out of the plane.

Hitting the ground on his side, and then trying to roll his way up to a kneeling position, the Agent raised his rifle just in time for something big and dark colored to graze him on the way past. The hit was indirect, but it was still enough to throw Chris onto his back where he slid a foot or two, while the rifle went in the opposite direction… and then he saw what it was that had been hitting the plane… as it was turning around to come back at him.

As the tracks indicated, it was a dog, well… more like a black wolf that had grown to several times its normal size. Its claws were long and sharp, covered in dried blood that must have been from the plane's pilot, and its pointed teeth were rotted with a few of them missing, sort of like the zombies that he had seen at the Spencer Estate and on Rockfort Island. The eyes were bloodshot and almost glowing yellow, and patches of fur were missing as it growled at him hungrily… yeah, this thing was definitely infected with a virus.

Now a random memory was popping into the Agent's head, that of Rebecca Chambers, who was now a professor of something at some university somewhere… he couldn't remember right now, telling him that the zombies and other monsters weren't actually hungry for flesh. It was her theory that biting and eating was simply the easiest way for the viruses to propagate themselves, sort of like how parasitized worms crawled up high onto leaves so that the parasite could infect the bird, or something like that.

_Ratta-tatta-ratta-tatta_! The giant dog had just started to run at him, when it was distracted by the small bullets from Jessica's rifle striking it in the side. The monster was so big that every one of her bullets hit its mark, peppering the its ribs, but the dog just seemed more annoyed than anything. So annoyed in fact, that it seemed to forget all about Chris, and start running back toward where the young woman was still taking cover inside the plane's front section.

She fired another entire clip at the monster, but all this did was make it angry, forcing Jessica to run back into the cockpit and shut the door to avoid getting eaten when the dong leapt up into what was left of the plane. _Bang! Bang! Bang!_ Returning the rescue that the young woman had done for him, Chris took the pistol out of his hip holster and started shooting, hitting the dog three times in the leg, but doing no damage… and causing it to change targets once again.

"Oh shit!" The Agent exclaimed as the dog leapt out of the plane to come after him.

Bullets weren't helping much in this case, so Chris ran for it, trying to break the dog's line of sight by getting close to the burning section of the plane and circling around it. At first the monster didn't fall for it, running after him and nearly grabbing the Agent in its jaws, if not for the dog's back coming into contact with the red hot engine, causing it to yelp and jump backwards. Since he was much smaller than the dog, Chris was able to pass through between the engine and more wreckage, leaving the dog to snarl and bark while trying to find a way to get to him.

First the monster ran around to get him on the other side, but the Agent simply passed back through, leaving the dog even more frustrated when it got there. Making one more attempt to grab him like that, this time the dog was roaring and drooling some kind of black substance, and clearly it had enough of Chris's nonsense, shown when it came running right through the wreckage after him. _Crash_! Knocking large pieces of twisted burning metal aside, one of the moving pieces his the Agent in the side, knocking him over, and allowing the dog to get its head in between just enough to reach him.

The beast's jaws snapped and snarled, trying to work its head farther in between the wreckage where he was hiding, and Chris had to keep moving from side to side to keep from getting bit. It was true that he was immune to most viruses now, thanks to being forcibly inoculated with the Daylight vaccine by Alexia Ashford back in the 90's, but immunity didn't help so much when it came to getting ripped to shreds by a giant dog.

_Bang! Bang! Bang!_ Firing the remainder of his pistol's clip into the monster's face, and also hearing the sound of Jessica's rifle from somewhere behind, he hoped that this would give him the opportunity to escape, but the dog was no longer interested in the young woman. Twisting and shoving forward so that its jaws were getting closer, and with bullets doing nothing to this monster, out of desperation the Agent grabbed for the flare gun inside his jacket.

Aiming the large pink colored gun at the dog's face, he pulled the trigger, sending the cartridge flying silently into the beast's mouth, where the thing appeared to swallow it whole. Growling again while preparing to attack again, suddenly the dog let out a yelp as its whole body started to shake and move in waves… as if it were made of a watery substance. When it opened its mouth, Chris could see the flare burning deep inside, and now a kind of discolored ooze was pouring out of every bullet hole in the thing's body… until the whole thing exploded.

_Splat!_ Covering Chris's face and clothes in that same fowl smelling ooze, the Agent just sat there whole the dog's body collapsed into a puddle of… something. God, the smell of this stuff was making him feel sick to his stomach, and it hurt when he vomited a few seconds later, but hey… at least he was still alive.


	13. Chapter 13 Base of Operations

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Thirteen: Base of Operations**

_Valkoinen Mokki Region, European Mountains_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

"Chris, are you all right?!" Jessica exclaimed, running over to him as he crawled out of his hiding place. "Are you… oh my God, what's that _smell_?!"

"Just… just stay back." Chris replied, trying not to vomit again. "Stay back and… don't touch the… the stuff."

His efforts failed just as he was getting to his feet, causing the Agent to have to lean over a piece of the wreckage before emptying his stomach onto the rocky ground. Oh God, the discolored ooze he had been covered in was foul, smelling like rotting meat and burning his nostrils at the same time, making him start to get dizzy each time he tried to take a breath. Okay, gotta get this stuff off… gotta get rid of it somehow.

The snow was the obvious choice, and the still burning fires of the cargo plane's wreckage were keeping the temperature up, so the Agent ran over to the very edge of the crash site where there was still now, and took off his jacket. Even with the plane's engines burning, the wind was still harsh, making Chris's hands shake while he tried to scrub the ooze off the material of the jacket and the hood. It took a while, but eventually all of the dark, discolored material was removed, as well as the stuff that got on his face, by uh… rubbing his face down in the snow.

This effort left the skin on his hands and face a deep color of red, and his hands were made even worse when he had to do the same thing to the heavy snow pants that he was wearing. At first Chris wanted to ask Jessica to help, but she hadn't taken the Daylight vaccine like he had, and it was possible that too much contact with the ooze or whatever it was could infect her. Eventually it was all scrubbed off, leaving a black discoloration on the snow where it was quickly frozen over, and allowing the Agent to breathe freely again.

"Are you okay, Chris?" Jessica asked as he put his gear back on. "Still feeling sick?"

"No, I'll be okay now." He replied, taking her hand to get to his feet. "You didn't see any more tracks, did you? Any more of those live animal cages?"

She shook her head, and the Agent sighed with relief… after all, dealing with one gigantic mutated dog was enough, and now… well, now they still had to get high enough to get a clear signal to headquarters. It was almost funny, after a few days of nothing but freezing their asses off, suddenly in the span of an hour he and Jessica had discovered not only a plane crash, but a mutated animal and a flight plan to what might be a secret Veltro headquarters. No signal with the radio, though, so they needed to climb higher.

According to the crashed plane's flight plan, their destination wasn't very far away at all, so the two of them checked and reloaded their weapons, before starting away from the crash site. As soon as they were out of range of the burning wreckage, the winter storm came back with a vengeance; the wind ripping its way right through their clothes as if making up for lost time. With all the time they had spent near the fires, Chris had forgotten just how nasty the rest of their trip had been, with his goggles starting to frost over in no time.

He had to keep scraping the ice off with the edge of his glove so that he could see, not that there was much to look at while climbing up toward the edge of the crater. It wasn't as steep as the way down, but the snow was deeper, making the trip even slower going over the next hour or two. Thankfully the storm was also starting to weaken during this time, with the wind slowly dying down by the time they got close to the top. Snow kept falling, though, and when the wind finally stopped all the way, Chris smirked a little when he could hear that his partner was still complaining about how deep it was.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, the Agent was able to swing his leg up over the top edge of the crater and drag himself up onto level ground again, followed by reaching down and helping Jessica up a minute or so later. Back at the crash site the fires from the plane's engines had just about gone out, allowing the area to be slowly sprinkled with snow once again, but now that he could see more than a few meters in front of his face, Chris was more concerned with what was up ahead, or well… down ahead.

There was another valley beyond the one they just climbed out of, and down in the center of this one was a group of small buildings. His own binoculars were still covered with frost, so the Agent had the young woman use hers to look the place over while he tried to contact headquarters. There was still a little bit of interference, but the signal was able to get through now that the storm had passed. Reaching their usual operator, Chris reported the details of the plane crash as well as the mutated animal, but then suddenly it was Director O'Brian on the line, sounding urgent.

"_It's great to hear your voice, Chris_." He said through the crackling static. "_What is your location_?"

"Still in the same range, O'Brian." The Agent reported, looking down at the locator function on the radio. "About ten clicks north from last check in, overlooking a place called Valkoinen Mokki Airport."

He had expected the Director to be pleased with their progress, but instead O'Brian seemed concerned. Not so much for him and Jessica, but because he had apparently sent Jill and Parker out into the Mediterranean on false Intel, under the assumption that Chris and the young woman were out there and in trouble. Was it possible that someone had hacked into the transponder signal while the two of them were jammed by the storm, and deliberately told BSAA headquarters that they were in a different place? For what, some kind of trap? And who even knew that they were out there?

"Oh my God." Jessica said quietly, before passing his the binoculars. "Chris, you need to take a look at this."

Asking the Director to hold on a second, the Agent took the binoculars and looked down toward the airport, where he saw a number of things. The first was that the airport's terminal and control tower weren't covered with ice, nor was the runway snowed in, meaning that the place could possibly still be operational. The second thing was another cargo plane like the one that had crashed, but this one had reached its destination since it was sitting on the runway, and had to have been there for a while since there were no heat marks on the ground near the engines.

Then Chris realized what the young woman was talking about when he passed over the buildings once again and saw that there was a flagpole. This was normal for almost every airport, since they always flew the flag of the nation they were located inside, but this one was different. It certainly had a flag, but it was yellow with a dog and a rifle near a black trapezoid. The only time the Agent had seen a banner like that before was in his apartment at Terragrigia just before Veltro made that speech.

"O'Brian, we've got a problem up here." He reported with more disappointment in his voice than anything. "Me and Jessica just checked out the airport from above, and we found what looks like the Veltro crest, but… but I don't see any activity at all down there."

"_Jesus… so it really is them_." The Director's voice replied. "_All right, I'll send another team to investigate the airport; I need you and Jessica to get back here on the double_."

At first the Agent didn't understand the urgency, but then O'Brian mentioned the fact that he had lost contact with Jill and Parker. Chris knew that the BSAA was incredibly short-staffed, especially with four separate under-funded divisions trying to cover operations on a global scale, but if he and Jessica were the only ones who could go after Jill, it was going to take hours just to get back to that cabin they stopped in before the plane crashed… unless…

"We'll be there as soon as we can, Chris out." He said, turning off the radio before grabbing Jessica's arm. "Come on, we gotta move fast."

"Wait a second." The young woman argued when she realized that they were heading toward the airport instead of away. "We're going the wrong way."

No they weren't, because even though it was a whole day's hike back the way they came, there was a perfectly good cargo plane right down there on the runway. The flight back was still going to take several hours, but at least the walk there was reduced from a whole day to about a half hour before they reached the airport's runway. Making sure to stay low and keeping their rifles ready, the Agent kept his eyes on a constant scan of the whole area for any signs of either Veltro or more of those mutated dog things, but it was so weird… there was literally nothing going on in there.

Not only that, but the plane was just sitting there unguarded with the doors opened, but even though there was no one inside, there were still signs of recent use. Oh well, the Agent thought as he and his partner climbed into the cockpit, if they managed to steal the plane without getting themselves all shot to hell by terrorists, then there would be plenty of time to examine the aircraft back at headquarters. So he locked the door, told the young woman to buckle in, and then started the engine.

No way they're just gonna let us get away with this, he thought, expecting to hear the _tink-tink-tink_ of bullets bouncing off the plane's hull at any second, but nothing happened as the engines warned up, nor when he turned around to head back down the runway… and still nothing when the rotors fired up to start taxiing. It was a little slippery, with Chris having to correct their course a couple times to keep from sliding right into a snowbank, but soon he was able to raise up the landing gear as the stolen cargo plane lifted off from the ground.

"I can't believe it." Jessica said as they flew higher up into the air. "Veltro just _let _us steal their only other plane… what, were they all _asleep_ in there or something?"

"I know, it just doesn't make any sense." The Agent replied, checking the fuel gauge and sighing with relief when it was full on both wings. "How the hell is this plane full if no one was… forget it, I don't care, we gotta go find Jill and Parker."


	14. Chapter 14 Somewhere Else

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Fourteen: Somewhere Else**

_Queen Zenobia Passenger Cabins_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

There was a soft warm breeze blowing along the white sands of the beach, causing the palm trees to sway softly while Jill stretched out on the hot sand. It was so nice to be able to spend her life lying on the beach in a tropical paradise where there were no such things as virus outbreaks or bioterrorism… nope, just day after day of sunshine and peace where the only thing the brunette had to work on was the tan she was getting from spending every day in a bikini… at least on the days that she wore that much.

"And here you are, _mi amor_." A man with much tanner skin said as he laid down next to her. "One Coconut Rum for _la mujer mas Hermosa del mundo_."

"Mmmm, why are you so good to me, Carlos?" She asked after taking a sip from the drink and then snuggling up to him. "I mean, keep it up, but… I'm so glad I decided to just stay here with you forever instead of going to work for the BSAA."

They kissed, and then the brunette closed her eyes while laying her head on his chest, but then everything shook, and her eyes snapped open, revealing that Carlos Olivera and the island paradise were gone, replaced by somewhere that was really dark. Instead of sand, she was lying alone on what felt like the mattress of a bed, wearing her BSAA uniform instead of a bikini, and instead of brilliant sunlight beaming down, there was only a single wall mounted emergency light to illuminate the room.

In the pale white light, Jill could see a few pieces of wooden furniture spaced around the room, along with a small Television, a floor that was coated with wood laminate, and the entrance to what looked like a bathroom. As the haze from her dream wore off and the brunette was able to sit up on the full size bed where she had been sleeping, she started to remember where she was and what she had been doing before waking up inside of this… what was this, one of the passenger cabins?

She and Parker had boarded the Queen Zenobia, one of the missing ships from the Terragrigia panic, in order to find Chris and Jessica, who were supposed to be way up in the mountains somewhere looking for Veltro survivors. Yeah, the last thing she remembered was going back into the mailroom after encountering that ooze creature again, but then… oh shit, she and Parker had been _gassed_! The big man had passed out, and then their small boat blew up, and then… then there was that guy with the gas mask.

But after passing out on the deck after seeing the boat explode, how had she gotten to the guest cabins? Not only that, but she wasn't tied up or anything, and her pistol was even still there in its holster. Didn't seem like a very smart move for a survivor of Veltro to just leave her there armed and not restrained… not that she was complaining, it just seemed really odd after all that effort was put into the ambush. I mean, they made a fake Chris dummy and everything, so what the hell?

"Parker, can you hear me?" Jill asked, pushing the button on her radio. "Parker, its Jill, where are you?"

"_Jill?!_" The big man's voice replied, sounding surprised to hear from her. "_Thank God, I've been trying to reach you for the past ten minutes… I woke up in one of the passenger cabins, I think, where are you?_"

All she could tell him was the same thing, that she woke up in one of the passenger cabins with all her stuff, and that was it. He was currently moving through the hallways searching for her, but that could take a while since the Queen Zenobia was so damn big, but Parker had also been unable to reach headquarters, so O'Brian didn't know what happened to them. She said that she would try and them call him back, but when Jill tried to get a hold of HQ there was nothing but static on that channel.

Maybe that was because they were too far away from the mainland, given that the ship was drifting in the Mediterranean, but at least the two of them could still contact each other. If the brunette started searching for him too, it was possible that they could miss each other, but the least she could do was go out into the hallway and tell him the room number of the cabin. Yeah, then Parker could come right to her, so Jill got out of bed and walked over to the door, only to find that it wouldn't open. Not only that, but the knob wouldn't even turn, and… wasn't that against fire code or something for doors to not open from inside a room?

It wasn't blocked from out in the hall, since the door shook when she tried to force it, but it didn't give way, and the knob wasn't turning, like something was wrong with the lock. It was one of those electronic ones with no keyhole, so picking it manually wasn't an option, so maybe a well-placed kick right next to the doorknob would do the trick. _Wham_! Pulling her leg back and slamming the bottom of her foot into the door, there was a slight cracking sound, but didn't even come close to breaking through… man, tough door.

"Parker, I can't reach HQ either." She said switching radio channels back to him. "And the door to this cabin's jammed, so I'm gonna force it, and then I'll tell you what room number it is."

"_Okay, but be careful, that Veltro guy could be still around_." The big man's voice replied. "_I've got a map of the cabins on the wall here, so I'll come to you as soon as you can tell me where you are_."

Easy enough, the brunette thought as she prepared to make another kick, but this one was only about as successful as the first one, and at this rate it would take several kicks to force the door open. Even though the bottom of her boot, Jill's foot was already starting to sting from the effort as she kicked the door again, and again, the last one resulting in an odd squishing noise that made her stop for a second. There was nothing in the door that should have squished, so what was… but then she realized that the sound hadn't come from the door… it had come from behind.

Slowly turning around, she saw that the source of the noise appeared to be the bathroom, and then Jill gasped when she saw that this was because there was something in it. Drawing her pistol, and clicking on the flashlight, the brunette watched as the ooze monster from before was wriggling its way out of the cabin's toilet. Grabbing onto the rim with its silmy, discolored hands, the monster was about halfway out of the toilet when Jill started kicking the door again, but the panic she was starting to feel wasn't making this any easier.

_Bang! Bang!_ Given the monster's ability to stretch its body, it was only a matter of seconds before the thing was free, so Jill waited until it was standing up, and then fired a couple shots just as it was coming out of the bathroom into the main cabin area. Like last time she had fought it, the thing gurgled while hesitating and putting up its arms in reaction to the bullets slamming into its torso, even causing it to back off a little, but she only had a limited amount of ammo, so she kicked the door again.

As soon as the weapon was lowered, the monster gurgled again, now coming after her with increased speed and aggressiveness, forcing her to use up two more bullets to get it to back off again. It was funny though, when the monster had been getting shot by that blonde woman in the lower decks, the bullets didn't seem to bother it, but there it was backing off again as if taking serious damage. Was there something different about the bullets that Jill was using? Either way it seemed to be working, but each time she returned to the door, the monster immediately came back, so she had to hurry.

_Wham! Wham! Wham!_ Kicking the door with all her strength as the monster came toward her, the thing was almost in arm's reach before the section around the doorknob broke apart, allowing Jill to run out the door just as the creature was about to grab her, before slamming it shut in its face. Unfortunately, since the knob and lock were broken now, there was nothing to stop the monster from hitting the door back open with such force that the brunette was sent stumbling backwards before falling on the floor.

"Parker, I'm at cabin 17!" She shouted in the radio, scooting backwards on the floor while shining the flashlight to read the plate on the wall. "That creature's here, I need help!"

_Bang! Bang! _If the big man said anything back, it was drowned out by the sound of gunfire as Jill tried to drive the creature back again. After two more shots the weapon clicked empty, forcing her to turn it away from the monster so that she could reload, and this time it came at her as fast as it could, gurgling and growling as it raised up its arm for the kill. But then it stopped when the beam of another flashlight was trained onto its discolored body, followed by more gunfire as Parker started shooting it.

Joined by Jill as soon as she was done reloading, the two of them shot the monster all over its body until it made a full out retreat back into the cabin, stretching itself in order to vanish back down into the toilet as quickly as it had come in. Laying back on the floor and letting out a sigh of relief, it felt like the first breath that the brunette had taken since the creature made its appearance. After a moment of both of them resting while Parker watched for any more dangers, the big man helped the brunette to her feet, but now what were they supposed to do?

"I still can't contact O'Brian or anyone back at headquarters." Parker said after trying one more time. "With some kind of outbreak, _and_ a Veltro survivor here, we've gotta find a way to let them know."

"Maybe this ship has one, a radio I mean." Jill suggested. "If it's working, that is… because if it isn't, then we're really on our own here."


	15. Chapter 15 The Promenade

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Fifteen: The Promenade**

_Queen Zenobia Bridge_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

Even though the elevator had been just down the hall from the passenger cabin where she had woken up, there was no power going to the Queen Zenobia, forcing Jill and Parker to find the stairwell. During the search, the brunette couldn't help noticing how beautiful the ship was in both design and décor, regardless of having been severely neglected for a year and being inhabited with some kind of ooze monster. The halls that connected the passenger cabins were decorated with expensive looking portraits and naval-themed display pieces, while area rugs broke up the monotony of the hardwood floors, and dust covered fake plants gave the illusion of life.

Returning to a more Spartan environment of concrete and metal once the stairwell was located, there was a directory sign telling them to head upwards to reach the Bridge, but the two of them had to be even more careful now than before. Not only had their escape boat been destroyed, but now on top of the unkillable monster there was at least one survivor of Veltro running around, if not more. Fortunately, neither of these things had been sighted since leaving the cabin, and as far as the brunette was concerned it could stay that way until a distress call could be sent out.

_Thud-thud-thud_, their footsteps echoed off the walls of the silent chamber while the small flashlight beams cast sinister looking shadows across the room, making Jill very glad that she had the big man around in case things went bad again. It wasn't like she _needed_ a man to look after her or anything like that, but if the Spencer Estate and Raccoon City had taught her anything, it was that they were a good thing to have around when the fighting started… and it _always_ started eventually.

"Do you know how to operate a ship's radio, Parker?" Jill asked as they curved around the next deck. "You don't think it requires a key or anything, do you?"

"It might if this was a _Navy_ vessel." The big man replied, keeping his flashlight moving from in front to behind so nothing could get the drop on them. "But for insurance reasons, civilian ships need to be _idiot-proof_, so there's probably instructions right next to the thing in case of emergencies."

Following the directory signs to the very top of the stairwell, the brunette carefully turned the latch while Parker covered her with his pistol, pushing to door open to reveal… a large open chamber that was just as dark and silent as the rest of the ship. All of the control panels were dark and unresponsive, but there was a full moon outside that was coming in through the windows just enough for them to see the shapes and shadows of everything in the room, but that was about it. From looking at her watch and seeing through the small porthole windows on the passenger deck, the brunette had known that night had fallen while she was unconscious, but it hadn't _really_ dawned on her until she looked out at the moonlight reflecting off the ocean outside.

"Okay, here's the radio." The big man announced, setting down his pistol so that he could work the controls. "And of course… it doesn't have any power."

Yeah, they should have expected that, Jill thought as she walked back over to him as if her presence would somehow magically make the radio come to life. This was impossible, but a ship like that should have had some emergency tie-in batteries that could be hooked up to individual systems in case of cascade power failure, and if left unused they would be viable for at least a couple years. A search of all the cabinets and lockers on the Bridge revealed that there were no such batteries to be found, but Parker had been right about one thing: There were instructions nearby.

Although there were no tie-in batteries, underneath the Captain's chair was a binder that was about as thick as a Chicago phonebook, and upon further inspection it turned out to be a complete operator's manual for the Queen Zenobia. They didn't have time to learn the whole thing, so the brunette skimmed the index for anything labeled _Communications_, with the first thing she discovered being a complete diagram of the ship's main radio. Didn't need that, so she kept going until the emergency procedures section came up.

"It says there's an emergency comms room down on the promenade." She read, following the words along with the small map on the next page. "I guess that's for if something happens to the Bridge?"

"The reasons for it don't really matter." Parker answered, picking up his pistol. "If the book says we can call for help from the promenade, then we go to the promenade, just… where is it, and… what's a promenade?"

Rolling her eyes and snickering a little as they headed back toward the stairwell, Jill explained to him that it was a fancy way to describe a boardwalk of shops and common areas, sort of like the food court of a shopping mall. Honestly, it didn't really matter what it was, but the two of them had to get to it in a hurry since having all of the Queen Zenobia's power out meant that there was no way for them to change the ship's course… they were still drifting just like it had been earlier in the day when they found it. There wasn't a danger of running aground or anything since they were dozens of miles away from any landmasses, or… at least they had been several hours ago. Who even knew where they had floated to in that time?

_Thud-thud-thud_, back into the stairwell and down the way they came, the route to the promenade took them even farther than the passenger deck, leaving the big man completely out of breath by the time they got to the deck marked _Promenade_. The brunette couldn't resist making a joke about how fast and energetic he had been when it came to climbing up the ship's hull with a grappling hook, to which he responded by giving her the finger while leaning on the wall next to the closed door.

As soon as Parker got his wind back, the two of them continued on, carefully opening the door just like they had done on the Bridge, and then shining their flashlights all around this vast open chamber. Just like she had described to him, this area of the ship was built like a shopping mall, with stores and kiosks from dozens of well-known retailers from all over the world. Whatever had happened to this ship must have happened fast, because none of the security grates were closed on any of the shops, leaving all kinds of expensive merchandise just sitting there untouched.

Jill had to admit that she was tempted to go into the _Dolce & Gabbana_ store and grab a pair of boots that would have normally cost her around two thousand American dollars, but right now the most important thing to do was find the emergency communication room, and besides… she could always come back for them. Again there was no sign of that slimy ooze monster nor the Veltro survivor, so the two of them quietly made their way toward the area on the map that they were looking for… for once it was actually pretty easy to find, but something was wrong… the door was closed and locked when Parker checked the knob, but at almost sounded like someone was in there.

"_Mayday… mayday… this is the… Queen Zenobia_." A deep and raspy voice said when they listened at the door. "_This is a… priority one… distress… send help… help me… please_."

The owner of the voice sounded like they were in a lot of pain, coughing and groaning as if having to fight for the ability to form simple sentences, but at least it sounded like a distress call was going out. Then again, it was possible that it was the Veltro survivor in there, and that he was hurt and calling for his friends to come and help… if that was the case, then they would try to save his life if they could, but any further communication with bioterrorists, if that was the case, needed to be stopped.

_Wham! Wham!_ Even with both of them kicking the door at the same time, it was sturdy enough to not give way, and this was another one of those locks that required a key card, so it couldn't be picked or shot open. What they needed was something that could be used to pry the door open, but… what the hell were they going to find in a place like this? Splitting up and starting to check the shops one at a time, Jill was quickly getting frustrated because this place was clearly meant to cater toward wealthy customers… not exactly the kind who would need a pry-bar or winch.

Show stores, clothing outlets, souvenir shops, this place was a tourist's dream with its well-dressed mannequins, and conveniently located cafes in case the _poor little rich girls_ got hungry while spending more money on clothes than the brunette made in a year. Heh, this kind of thing must have been right up Chris's girlfriend's alley, but… damn it, he was just as broke all the time as she was, so how in the hell did Chris keep the interest of a high roller like Amelia Ashland? There was no way for the Agent to provide the things that she was used to, but every time they were together the brown haired woman completely enthralled like a schoolgirl with her first crush.

Then she saw it… something that brought Jill's thoughts back to the present… the one place in the whole promenade that could maybe give her what was needed: The janitor's closet. Made of much lower quality than the door to the communication room, it was easy for her to kick it open by herself, and there next to the mop bucket and the chemical dispenser, was a large toolbox. The brunette had hoped to find a set of keys hanging inside, but her luck wasn't that good, so she had to settle for the small breaker bar that was found in the box.

When she got back to Parker, the voice inside the room was struggling to repeat the same distress call as if he were becoming delirious from blood loss or something, so as soon as Jill got back with the bar, she and the big man set it into the frame and worked together to force the lock. It took a lot of effort, with her putting her leg on the doorframe to give her more leverage, but finally there was the cracking sound of breaking wood just before the door swung inward to reveal…

"Holy… shit." Parker managed to whisper in reaction to the horror that their flashlights revealed in the darkness of the small room. "Jill, get back! Get back!"


	16. Chapter 16 Mayday Mayday

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Sixteen: Mayday… Mayday…**

_Queen Zenobia Promenade_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

At first Jill wasn't sure what it was that their flashlight beams were illuminating, but then the form of the monster became clear once it started to turn around to face them. Like the ooze monster from the lower decks, most of this creature's body was bloated and discolored, but it was far larger than the ooze monster in both height and mass, and the thing also appeared to have… two heads? No, not just two heads, more like its lower half was one single creature, but it split apart at the waist into two separate beings.

On the left was the rest of the monster that matched the lower half, with its deformed head full of sharpened fangs, and a powerful arm with claws that could easily cleave through body armor. The right side, however, although its skin was slightly bloated and discolored, mostly resembled a malnourished human male. His eyes were glazed over and there was no hair anywhere on its body which was dripping with that same ooze… but the strangest part was that this human part of the monster was where the voice had been coming from.

"_A rescue… team_?" The human part asked as his head rolled back and forth. "_Save me… save me from… the monsters_."

Unfortunately, while the human side was pleading for help, the mutated half was walking toward the two of them, causing Jill and Parker to defend themselves. _Bang! Bang!_ Keeping their flashlights focused on the abomination while backing away, the two of them fired several shots into its massive frame, causing more discolored water to leak out from the wounds, but not really hurting the thing. It's monster half gurgled in what sounded like anger, forcing the brunette to dive out of the way when its massive claw swiped at her, but the human portion was afraid, holding up his one arm to protect himself.

"_Wait… I'm a human_." He struggled to say while coughing up more darkened water. "_Queen Zenobia… Communications… Officer. I sent… I sent out… distress call… help me_."

Jill had seen a lot of things both at the Spencer Estate and in Raccoon City, but as she and Parker led this abomination around the promenade, the brunette never expected to hear an infected creature calling for help. Everyone knew that it was possible for infected subjects to retain at least a portion of their humanity, like in the cases of Albert Wesker, Tobias Liquid, and Alexia Ashford, but this was just something else entirely. Distracted by her thoughts, the brunette tripped when the back of her foot came into contact with an abandoned kiosk, which gave the monster the time it needed to catch up to her.

Thankfully Parker was right there, and since their bullets weren't doing much good, the big man pulled back his arm while rushing toward the creature, stopping its monster arm from grabbing Jill when he slugged it in the monster face as hard as he could. Sure this move gave the brunette time to roll out of the abomination's reach, but the blow hadn't done any real damage, leaving it free to backhand Parker with its monster arm so hard that he was lifted off his feet. The big man flew right over the counter of the kiosk, crashing into a stack of old cups and water bottles as he fell to the floor, but leaving Jill an opening to attack the creature.

_Wham_! Taking an old metal fire extinguisher off the wall and swinging it with all her strength, the beast was staggered when the edge of the metal cylinder struck it in the side of the mutated head, but then it swung its arm in retaliation. Striking the extinguisher just as the brunette was swinging it again, she cried out as the very edge of its claw raked across her arm, drawing a good amount of blood while the metal cylinder flew from her grasp.

"_Leave… her alone_." The human half ordered, suddenly grabbing the mutated head with his one arm. "_Run, girl… get help… hellllllp_."

Cradling her injured arm while running over to see if Parker was all right, Jill couldn't help being confused by what she was watching. The two halves of the mutated creature now seemed to be fighting, grabbing and swiping at each other while she helped the big man get to his feet. _Bang! Bang!_ The beast stumbled around aimlessly, bumping into walls and even causing another old kiosk to collapse as the two halves fought for dominance, but there was no conceivable way for Jill and Parker to help the human half, since their bullets just seemed to annoy both halves at once.

But then the monster half must have lost patience with the whole affair, because its clawed hand suddenly grabbed the human half by the waist, causing the communications officer to scream and bleed out massive amounts of darkened water as the claws dug into his whitened flesh. Deeper and deeper the claws sunk, and then there was an awful ripping sound as the whole human portion of the creature was literally ripped out at the base. Once separation was complete, the monster tossed the gurgling communications officer to the floor and stomped its massive foot right down onto his discolored skull… and then the human part was quiet.

"Jill, we've got to get out of here." Parker said as the monster turned toward them. "All we're doing is wasting bullets."

The big man was right, but what else were they supposed to do? The monster was blocking their path to the emergency communications room, and now that its human half was gone there was nothing to hold it back from killing them. Fortunately, it seemed that removing half of its physical self was not such a hot idea for the beast, since now it was hemorrhaging watery ooze from the massive wound left behind from the, uh… extraction process. It wasn't dying, but the thing had certainly slowed down, and it seemed… disoriented?

Maybe if she or Parker were able to distract it for a while, the other one could go to into that room and send out a _real_ distress call, but which of them should do it? The big man was a hell of a lot stronger than she was, but Jill was faster than him, and… _Fwoosh… BOOM_! It took a second for the brunette to register than she had heard a noise that didn't belong, even after seeing the shadow of a small object pass through her flashlight beam on its way to embedding itself inside of the wound left by the creature's surgery… and then it exploded.

The beast's gurgling scream was cut off by the rush of fire and noise that filled that section of the promenade, while the whole place took on an orange glow, and now what remained of its whole body was coated with fire. Growling and gurgling as it stumbled around, it looked like the fire was eating away at the monster's outer coating, exposing the muscle tissue underneath, so that grenade or whatever it was had to be something special. Swinging its remaining claw wilding and stumbling into another wall, the beast shrieked while the flames continued to eat through its body like strong acid going through thin metal, and it was slowing down.

Ooze was pouring from its mouth now as it fell to its hand and knees, bubbling up as if being boiled, and then after one more attempt to stand up, the monster collapsed. Not just falling onto its face, but continuing to melt down until there was nothing left but a very large puddle of goo on the floor. The flames went out a few seconds later once there was nothing left to burn, leaving the promenade just as dark as it had been before, with only their flashlights for illumination.

"What the… hell just happened?" The big man asked, looking down at the puddle. "How could that _thing_ have been both the creature _and_ the communications officer?"

"I don't know." Jill replied, trying to keep her thoughts focused. "Come on, let's contact O'Brian."

The brunette felt terrible as she looked down at the discolored remains of the communications officer, realizing that he had probably been stuck like that ever since the attack on Terragrigia. How could anyone, even a disgusting bioterrorist group like Veltro, actively choose to do that to a person? All survivors of that organization had to be stopped, which was exactly what was going to happen as soon as they made contact with headquarters. However, when the two of them entered the emergency communications room, they found that all the control panels were dark, just like they had been on the Bridge.

Everything was still intact, but nothing was working, and there were no emergency tie-in batteries around there, either. Of course, the power switch was still on, meaning that if the system ever _did_ have its own power source, then the communications officer had probably drained it while repeating a pointless distress call over the past year. God damn, this ship was frustrating, Jill thought while turning around to lean against the useless console… and then the edge of her flashlight beam revealed the leg of another figure standing just outside the door.

"Parker!" The brunette called, starting to raise her pistol.

"Don't even think about it." The stranger replied, the light beams showing that his own weapon was already pointed at them. "Drop the guns, and keep those hands where I can see them."

It was an old _M-79 Grenade Launcher_ that the stranger was holding in his hands, meaning that this person was the one who had destroyed the mutated communications officer with that flame shell… and also that there was probably another one loaded in his chamber. So she and Parker did as he said, setting down their pistols and raising their hands, although the young man's features were revealed in the light beams when they did.

"Wait a minute… Raymond?" The big man suddenly asked. "Raymond Vester, is that you?"

"Parker Luciani." The young man scoffed, laughing a little. "I'd recognize that stomach anywhere… this is an FBC mission, what are you two even doing here? And where's Rachael?"

"Our comrades' transponder signal led us here." Jill explained as everyone started to relax a little. "And who the hell is Rachael?"

Now that no one was pointing a weapon at each other, Raymond explained that Rachael Foley was his partner, and that he had lost contact with her some time ago. Apparently the young man had been searching the Queen Zenobia for her deck by deck, and when he saw Jill's figure in the light while fighting that monster, Raymond thought she was her. Unfortunately, aside from Raymond and that Veltro survivor, the only other person that the brunette had seen onboard was that blonde woman who had been killed by the ooze monster.

The young man was silent for a time after hearing that his partner was most likely dead, but then he shook his head to refocus, and told them that Rachael had been trying to find a way to bring the ship's main power back online. Without power, there was no way for any of them to call for help, so it looked like the next move for any of them was to try and find a way to bring the Queen Zenobia back to life.


	17. Chapter 17 Raymond Vester

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Seventeen: Raymond Vester**

_Queen Zenobia Lower Decks_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

"So, how do you two know each other?" Jill asked to break the silence. "Did you work together when Parker was still with the FBC?"

The brunette didn't know this person the way that Parker seemed to, so even though it was nice to have the safety of numbers for their latest trip into the stairwell, she wanted to feel him out a bit. There was no reason not to trust his organization, since they had done joint missions with the BSAA several times, but it bothered her that somehow the FBC got onboard the Queen Zenobia before they did, since supposedly it was Chris's signal that they tracked to get there.

"Yes, when I was a rookie just out of training." Raymond replied, taking a second to look around with his own flashlight. "My first assignment was the branch office at Terragrigia, and you know what? I actually thought I was _lucky_ to be selected."

We all did; that place was beautiful." Parker added as they passed the door into the next deck. "Nice weather, everything was clean, no crime, and then… there were the days Ms. Ashland liked to work on her tan on the roof of the control tower."

Jill rolled her eyes as the two men let out a wolf whistle, and now she was starting to understand how Jessica must have felt having to be there. Both she and the young woman were considered to be highly attractive, but on top of being a successful billionaire who could snap her fingers and build cities on the water, Chris's girlfriend was gorgeous to the point where it was almost offensive. Sure, she tried to hide it with the whole _bayou girl_ look, and once in a great while it sounded like her accent slipped… seriously, nothing against her old partner, but why did Amelia like Chris so much?

"That whole assignment was a cake-walk until Veltro released the virus." Raymond continued, bringing back Jill's thoughts. "In less than an hour, paradise turned into hell, and if the people getting infected wasn't enough, there were those _frog... gorilla_ things swarming the city."

"For _three weeks_ we tried to contain the outbreak." Parker said after another look to make sure there were no threats ahead or behind. "But those Hunters, as you and Chris call them, just kept gaining ground no matter how many we killed. In the end there were only a handful of us and the Commissioner who made it out, we… we really could've used Chris's help back then."

The brunette hadn't been on Terragrigia, but after reading the reports and seeing the video footage of the last days of the crisis, she knew that it was a nightmare, and that was why the decision was made to use the full and unrestrained power of the Regia SOLUS satellite as the final solution. When all of that power came flooding down onto the city just as the last evacuation helicopters were flying out, it was as if the sun had gone nova, and the city didn't stand a chance… nor did the victims of what Veltro called _T-Abyss_, the monsters they brought along… or the bioterrorists themselves.

As if he had attained the power of God, Commissioner Lansdale snapped his fingers, and the mighty city of Terragrigia was no more. Flashing bright like a star on its own, the concrete busted apart and the steel melted under the incredible magnified power of the sun, causing the glass of the solar panels and even the impact glass of the buildings to shatter in seconds, and then everything sank. Only the tallest towers were still visible above the surface of the ocean, and in a twist of irony Veltro had been caught in their own trap, probably not figuring that anyone was willing to destroy the city… sort of like Umbrella and Raccoon City all over again.

From what they had all heard, Chris was on the outskirts of the city when the outbreak began, and was cut off from joining the others at the control tower because of the hunters and the virus itself. Everyone knew that he was immune to all forms of the T-Virus, but Ms. Ashland had been with him and she wasn't, so they couldn't just run through the cloud, and there were hundreds of hunters in the streets by the time it cleared. Although spared from the initial cloud of T-Abyss, the people inside the buildings were only safe until the Hunters found them, so Chris was forced to try and escape.

According to Amelia, once the two of them were found drifting on one of her smaller, personal boats, the Agent had gotten injured during their last escape attempt, but he had killed dozens of those things all by himself. She claimed that Chris had tried to rescue a ton of civilians, but none of them survived the final push toward the boat, and the brown haired woman actually had to drag him the last few feet onboard. From there they ran out of fuel and drifted for a couple days before the city's destruction, and were finally rescued.

Chris was unconscious for a while after that, but when he woke up, the Agent repeated the same story told by Ms. Ashland verbatim. Everyone knew the rest; Raymond stayed with the FBC while Parker and Jessica transferred to the BSAA, and now here they all were. No, literally they had finally reached the lower decks that led into the engineering section, and Jill was happy to leave the stairwell since her legs were starting to burn from the constant up and down. In Leon Kennedy's report on the Starlight Incident, he noted having to do the same thing with stairwells during his fight against Tobias Liquid, and the brunette wondered how he had managed that with still being able to walk after.

"Hold up." Parker said, holding his hand up make them stop. "Listen… do you hear that?"

For a second Jill didn't hear anything, but then there it was… the unmistakable squishing sound of that first ooze monster as it forced its way through one of the air ducts up ahead. Forming an almost liquid mass as it dropped down from the ceiling, the monster took a second to reform itself into a mostly solid, uh… sort of human looking form that it had used to attack them before, but the hard whump when it landed on the ground had been more jarring psychologically than the brunette had expected.

"Stand back, you two." Raymond said, taking the grenade launcher off his back as he moved to the front. "I'll handle this."

_Fwoosh-BOOM_! Just like he had done against the mutated communications officer, the young man put a red colored shell into the weapon's chamber, snapped it closed, and then pulled the trigger. It exploded on impact, making the creature let out a gurgling sound as it burst into flames, and then it stumbled into the wall before dropping to its hands and knees. However, instead of melting apart like the bigger monster upstairs had done, this one just stayed in the kneeling position as darkened water spilled from its wounds… until it all stopped.

Still illuminated by the fire, the monster let out a much louder and deeper gurgling noise as if it were angry, and then its body started to change. Where it had been just a smooth covering of discolored, bloated skin, something was starting to protrude through its epidermis from within; jutting out like spikes in places like near its hands and on its head, while remaining flat in other areas like across its torso like… almost like some kind of hardened armor covering was being produced in reaction to all the damage it had taken.

"What the fuck?" Parker asked as it slowly stood up.

Now not only was the thing armed with spikes and protected with partial armor, but it had become at least a foot taller, and stockier as well. So of course, the three of them started shooting at it, with bullets making small cracks upon hitting the armor plates, but still having the original affect when hitting a soft spot. Raymond used this time to reload his grenade launcher, firing another flame round as soon as it was ready, and this time the monster roared when the explosive impact knocked it backwards.

Gurgling and groaning from what Jill guessed was pain, the enhanced monster tried to escape by forcing itself through one of the nearby vents, but even though the soft parts of its body were still able to do so, the armor plates got stuck. Apparently its sudden evolution was a kind of give and take thing, since now it was stronger, but unable to use the vents to move around like it did before… so instead of running away, it decided to attack… by sprinting right toward them.

"Run!" Jill ordered, grabbing Parker's arm. "Run, come on!"

Covered with lingering fire as it ran after them a lot faster than it should have been able to, the enhanced monster slashed at the fleeing trio with the spikes on its arms, leaving large gashes in the nearby walls. This thing was fast, but it was kind of clumsy, struggling to keep its balance during quick turns, and sometimes even running into the wall because it couldn't stop itself fast enough to change directions in the first place. Of course, now the brunette didn't have any idea where she was going, having gotten turned around after making several detours into empty corridors to avoid getting slashed apart each time the thing caught up to them.

"This is getting us nowhere!" Parker yelled, turning back to fire a couple shots at their pursuer. "We have to lose it somehow!"

"Then split up!" The young man said, putting another flame shell into his launcher. "I'll draw it away, and you two get main power back on!"

Jill didn't like the idea of splitting up, nor any of them having to fight the enhanced monster on their own, but Raymond had already made up his mind by turning around and firing the shell right into the monster's chest. With it knocked off its feet and the corridor filled with flames, this was their chance to get away while it was distracted, but the monster was also already starting to get up. The young man yelled for them to get out of there, loading another shell and firing just as the big man grabbed her by the arm to pull her along.

"Come on, this is our only chance!" Parker exclaimed as he pulled her into another corridor. "We're all dead if we don't get power working so we can call for help!"


	18. Chapter 18 The Power Room

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Eighteen: The Power Room**

_Queen Zenobia Engineering Decks_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

"Raymond, this is Parker, can you hear me?" The big man said into his radio. "Come on, Rookie, please tell me you're still alive."

"_Don't worry, Luciani, I'm not dead_." Raymond's voice replied a few seconds later. "_I crawled through an air duct to escape, and get this… it was too big to follow me_."

That was actually pretty funny, considering that until its sudden mutation, the monster had used ducts and pipes of all sizes to travel around. Okay great, so now that everyone had managed to escape from the creature, a new plan needed to be put into place about how they were going to call for help once main power was restored… if she and Parker were even able to do that. So it was decided that once the two of them got things running, Raymond would head back to the emergency communications room so that a message could be sent out as soon as the switch was thrown.

It didn't really matter to the brunette if he contacted the BSAA or the FBC, just as long as _someone_ was able to come and help, but eventually O'Brian needed to be informed because for all she knew, their Director didn't even know that Chris's signal had been a trap by Veltro… or that Veltro was even still around. What was funny though, was that ever since their initial encounter, Jill hadn't seen a single sign of that organization's presence… maybe they all got eaten by that monster, or already jumped ship while she was unconscious.

Now going deeper into the lowest levels of the Queen Zenobia, they must have been right at water level because the air was a lot colder now, and the whole ship could be felt moving side to side at a rhythmic pace that must have been from the ocean's waves. Waves could get big way out in the middle of nowhere where there was no land to break them up, and… damn it was getting cold. The brunette found herself shivering a little as they reached the bottom of a service stairwell, where a little bit of frost had started to form on the railing and other metal surfaces, without the ship's heaters to stave it off.

Beyond the stairs and down the corridor of grated steel so that they could see what was on the walkways both below and above, Jill couldn't help feeling that this place was even creepier than the rest of the ship. It was nothing but bare concrete and steel walls, with pipes and conduits running along the underside of each walkway, but thankfully there was no sign of that enhanced monster or the survivors from Veltro. Maybe after the power was back on they could use a security station or something to find the bioterrorists with the cameras… if any of them were still working after a year of neglect.

What Parker had told her about these kind of cruise ships needing to be idiot-proof still ringing true, the brunette quickly found a map on the wall of the engineering decks, allowing her to plot the fastest way from where they were, indicated with a large 80's style _YOU ARE HERE_ marker, to the main generator room. It was a good thing they found that map, and also that there were directory signs all through the place, or else the two of them might have gotten hopelessly lost along the confusing twists and turns of the nearly identical corridors.

"Here it is… the Generator Room." The big man announced as they approached a metal hatch that was labeled as such. "Let's just hope it's still intact."

The door wasn't locked, but the hinges were coated with a mixture of frost and rust, causing an unbearable squeaking noise to be produced as the hatch was pulled open, making the brunette have to close her eyes and grit her teeth as the sound echoed throughout the entire deck. Once it stopped, she opened her eyes and shined the flashlight around the next room to reveal that they were stepping into a chamber that wasn't very wide, but made up for that by being at least three decks high. Thing was, there wasn't really that much inside this chamber except for a series of catwalks and a bunch of really big pipes that ran up and down.

A control panel was set at the far end, but the most dominant feature of the room was the huge glass panel that took up the entire wall behind the console, going all the way up and revealing that the actual generator was in its own sealed room on the other side. At least, she thought it was the generator, since it was a giant machine with all kinds of cables connected to it, so what else could it be? Well, great, now that they had found the thing, how in the hell were they supposed to turn it back on?

"It says here to start by flipping the _main switch_." Parker read from a metal plaque on the wall. "And then turn the _primer wheel_ rapidly until the auto-ignition has enough power built up to start, and then hit the _red button_."

Jill already knew that everything there had to be easy to use for emergencies, but if she had known that it was _this easy_, then maybe she could have gotten a better paying career back in the 90's. Well, actually back then there were hardly any warning labels on anything dangerous, let alone operating instructions in layman's terms, so it still looked like being a cop had been her best option. So the big man did what it said, causing a loud _thunk_ sound to echo throughout the chamber when he flipped the main switch, and then starting to turn the only wheel in sight as quickly as he could.

As he turned the wheel there was a whirring sound as some of the lights on the control panel began to come on, and once there was a sharp _beep_, which they took as the power being ready, he slammed his hand down on the largest red button. For a moment everything went quiet, but then there was a sound similar to the engine on a semi-truck trying to turn over, and finally a flash of light. No, not a flash of light, but rather some of the lights in the room flickering on and off at a faster and faster rate until staying on as soon as the generator was working at full speed.

Well, that was that, the brunette thought as she looked at the vibrating generator. This had been so much easier than she had expected, and now all they had to do was go back up to the emergency communications room, and… hey how about that… the air was getting a little warmer already, too. Sighing with relief as she turned to sit on the edge of the console for a second, this nice feeling was interrupted by the loud _wham_ of something falling down from the upper levels of the room.

Now that all of the lights were on, she and Parker could clearly see that it was the enhanced monster that Raymond had tried to lead away from them… damn it, thing must have resumed chasing after them once the young man escaped through that air vent. Something was wrong with it, though, since with all this light the brunette could see the soft parts of its discolored skin sizzling as if still being affected by those flame shells… sure wish they had some of those right about now.

_Bang! Bang!_ Without hesitation, the big man began to fire his weapon at the monster, aiming for the unprotected places that didn't have armor, such as its joints and neck. Jill joined in, causing the beast to growl and gurgle as it had done before, but then with one last shot its whole left arm began to swell up to the point where it looked like it was going to explode. Instead of blowing up, though, the bloated flesh started to look like it was reshaping itself into some sort of elongated spear type… thing… which she didn't understand the point of until it was launched right at her like a projectile.

The monster's aim was a little off, causing the sharpened edge to graze along the side of her face instead of hitting dead center, but it was still enough to cause her to hiss in pain while a drop of blood ran down from the wound. A gun?! The damn thing had a fucking _gun_ now?! _BOOM_! She had been just about to shoot it again, since it only had the one projectile, but was instead thrown forward by an explosion from behind. Apparently after embedding itself into one of the largest pipes in the room, the projectile exploded with concussive force, powerful enough to not only throw her forward… but also to rupture the pipe.

From the hole in the metal, a large amount of water began to flow into the room, going right through the grated floor and into the lowest level. To make matters worse, the creature's empty projectile arm was slowly growing a new spear, but at the same time its whole body looked like it was even worse condition… like making that weapon was taking its toll. With its armor plates untouched, the soft flesh underneath was bubbling and fizzing like the ooze inside was boiling up, causing its movements to become more sluggish and awkward until it could barely hold up its _gun arm_ for the next shot.

Parker had tried to shoot it again, with no visible affect, and Jill was slow to get up after the blast, so she was only to her knees by the time the monster was ready to take another shot. Its arm was shaking so badly now, and the uh… barrel… thing was melting so that it was pointed downward when the projectile was launched. Okay, launched was too strong a word, because the thing just kind of slid out and fell to the floor while the monster itself fell to its knees… only to be consumed by its own explosion.

Pure concussive force didn't produce any smoke, so the two of them watched as the monster's weakened body was ripped apart until nothing was left but some goo and armor chunks, but the celebration for this victory was cut short when the brunette realized that her feet and knees were really cold. Gasping when she looked down, Jill saw to her horror that the still flowing water from that massive pipe had pooled up to where it was covering the whole lower section, rising to the point where it was coming through the grated floor where she was kneeling.

"Let's get out of here!" Parker yelled, pulling her to her feet. "Come on, through that door!"

The generator was in a separate sealed room, so they didn't have to worry about the water reaching it, but the problem came when Jill reached the hatch… and it didn't open. Somehow it had become locked to the point where the wheel wouldn't even turn, and now the water was reaching her knees, but thankfully there was another door on the other side. Sloshing their way through the freezing, slowly rising water, the two of them reached the other door on the far side of the chamber, only to find that this one was sealed, too.

"We're trapped!" The big man exclaimed as the water kept rising. "Jill, we're trapped in here!"


	19. Chapter 19 Search Pattern

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Nineteen: Search Pattern**

_Standard Search Pattern 02, Mediterranean Sea_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

"I don't get it." Jessica said as she looked out the helicopter's side window. "The Mediterranean always just seemed like a big lake to me before, so why's this taking so long?"

"You always had _exact coordinates_ before." Chris replied, looking out the other side. "At night, without any information, even finding something as big as Terragrigia would be like looking for a needle in a haystack."

With the stolen plane from Veltro, it had only taken a fraction of the time to get from the frozen Valkoinen Mokki region back to Italian Airspace, but once the two of them arrived back at headquarters things pretty much stalled out. A team had been sent in to investigate the seemingly abandoned airport, but absolutely nothing had come of it, and the Agent wasn't exactly hopeful that a further analysis of the crash site would bring out any leads, either. O'Brian still sent the team up there to check it out on the off chance that they would get something, but in the meantime Chris wasn't about to sit on his hands while Jill was possibly in danger.

The biggest problem was the funding crisis that the BSAA was going through, especially since a lot of the largest world economies were facing a recession, including the USA, which meant that their biggest supporters weren't exactly donating as much as usual. Essentially their branch of the organization was strapped for cash, with all available resources being used for the investigation of Valkoinen Mokki. Sure, they had enough funds for a helicopter and fuel, but not for a search that needed to cover half the Mediterranean. That was like the difference between fifty thousand dollars and possibly a million in just fuel costs alone.

Just leaving Jill and Parker out there alone was not an option, which the Agent voiced to Director O'Brian quite loudly, and for some reason the Director was wholeheartedly against contacting the FBC for help, leaving them only one other option. Chris felt like a real asshole needing to go to his girlfriend for help like this, but there wasn't much that he wasn't willing to do to keep Jill safe, and besides… Amelia's eyes lit up a little when they told her about the last transmission received from their missing people.

"Are you tellin' me ya'll found one of my missin' ships?" The brown haired woman asked, leaning forward a little on the couch in O'Brian's office. "The Queen Zenobia's still floatin' after all this time?"

"According to Agent Valentine, that is correct, Ms. Ashland." The Director replied. "And if you provide the funds for this rescue mission, I seen no reason that the BSAA can't expedite its return to you once the operation is over."

Beyond the possibility of getting back one of her billion dollar ships, the brown haired woman assured them that she was willing to pay for their fuel even without it. After all, how could Chris ever believe that she truly cared for him if she just let his best friend say out there all scared and alone? The Agent could never imagine Jill being _scared and alone_, but regardless of that fact, it was only about another hour later that the BSAA's remaining helicopter was able to take off. Too bad it wasn't until well after sundown that they caught a break in the search.

"_Chris, O'Brian here_." The Director's voice came through the radio. "_I've got good news for you; the team up north was able to get some information from one of the computers on that crashed plane. Well… it had some bad news, too, but we got that ship's tracking frequency and last known location_."

"That's awesome, O'Brian." The Agent replied excitedly, giving Jessica a thumbs up. "You tell the team up there that I'm gonna buy a beer for each one of them… maybe two."

Relaying the coordinates and tracking frequency to the pilot, the helicopter started changing course a moment later, but then it was time for the Director to give the bad news that had been discovered. That signal also allowed the BSAA to intercept a broadcast coming from somewhere out in the ocean, presumably from the missing ship, that included a video from the leader of Veltro, himself. Jack Norman, the founder of the bioterrorist group, had presumably died in Terragrigia, but this broadcast proved otherwise.

Chris only got to hear the audio with Norman threatening to infect one fifth of all the world's waters with the T-Abyss virus, but O'Brian described the rest to him. On the video Norman removed his gasmask to confirm his identity, and then injected a small amount of familiar red gas into a tank full of fish. As soon as the gas touched the water it disbursed to all corners, and in a matter of seconds the harmless fish had tripled in size and become feral with long sharp teeth as they attempted to break free of the glass.

"All right, so at least we can confirm that Veltro's still out there." Chris said, feeling a knot form in his stomach but trying to remain calm. "We should reach the Queen Zenobia in a matter of minutes and I'll give you an update then, Chris out."

Once the conversation was over, the pilot confirmed that there was a large ship-shaped object starting to appear on the long range radar, so the Agent and Jessica began doing a last minute check of their equipment, when static started coming from the radio. He tried to adjust the squelch, but it didn't do any good, and then the noise changed to a high pitch at first, until he started to hear what sounded like a voice trying to break through. Yeah, it was a voice all right, one that was calling his name as the signal slowly cleared up.

"This is Chris Redfield." He replied, turning down the volume so that the noise didn't hurt so much. "Identify yourself."

"_Oh good, it works_!" The voice exclaimed with a little more clarity. "_Keith, it works! Hey, this is Quint Cetcham up here at Valkoinen Nokki, and I only got a little time before the FBC find out I jumped on their satellite._ _See, me and Keith Lumley were checking out the area, and there was no sign of Veltro anywhere, like they cleared out real fast like. Then I got the data on your missing ship, but it was right there on the screen like it was the last thing the pilot was looking at before, you know…. Vvvvrrrrrrooommmmm, bang_!"

This guy talked way too fast, and the Agent didn't care for the crash sound effects either, but if Chris was understanding Keith correctly, it was like he was saying that not only did Veltro run away from their own headquarters, but that they were also searching for their own ship. But that didn't make any sense, and now the fast talking man was adding more details, including how O'Brian was acting all squirrely about the whole thing, and that he was absolutely refusing to let anyone share Intel with the FBC.

"_Hey, just keep all that in mind, huh_?" Keith said as the signal started to break up. "_All right, I gotta get off here before I get traced, good luck_."

One battle at a time, Chris told himself as he tried to process everything that the fast talking man had said to him, especially now that the ship in question was coming into visual range. The Agent could confront the Director about the FBC and everything else later, for now he was just going to focus on finding Jill and Parker. From the look of the ship as the helicopter flew alongside, it looked like a few of the lights were still working, but the whole thing also looked like it was drifting.

There was a helicopter landing pad toward the bow, so that was where the pilot was heading, needing to circle their way around the Bridge and then back over to the bright yellow letter _H_ with the circle around it. With the possibility of Jill being in danger right now, especially with Veltro survivors around with their virus, everything felt like it was taking forever, even though the pilot was moving as quickly as possible. As soon as the landing struts touched down, the Agent pulled open the side door, allowing him and Jessica to jump down onto the deserted sun deck.

"_Keep the engines going in case we gotta leave in a hurry_." He told the pilot via the radio. "_But if anyone starts shooting at you, take off and just try to circle around out of range until you get my signal_."

Circling around aimlessly for six hours had worked pretty well for Brad Vickers during the whole Spencer Estate disaster, and the helicopter needed to be close in case Jill was hurt or anything like that. Of course, now that the two of them were making their way across the sun deck, he was starting to realize that every member of the bioterrorist organization onboard probably knew they were there. The Agent himself wasn't worried about getting attacked with that viral gas either, but Jessica didn't have that kind of immunity, and he couldn't do this mission alone.

"So, what's the plan from here?" The young woman asked, staying close to him as they walked. "How do we find Jill and Parker?"

"No plan, just search every room we come across." Chris replied. "And if we run into anyone from Veltro, we're gonna capture and interrogate them, but Jessica listen to me… if we get hit with any of that T-Abyss gas, I want you to run, all right?"

She nodded, adding a crack about how nice it was that he wanted to protect her, and the Agent forced a laugh just to be polite. By this time they had reached the first door that led into the interior of the Queen Zenobia, and after each of them got on separate sides of the doorframe, Chris checked the latch to find that it wasn't locked. Mouthing a silent three count, he drew his pistol and stepped out from cover to kick the door open as hard as he could, but although the Agent was expecting a heavily armed group of Veltro soldiers to contend with, dim levels of light inside the corridor revealed… nothing.

"No signs of hostiles or friendlies so far." He reported, switching the frequency to Headquarters as they stepped inside. "Jessica and I are now entering the Queen Zenobia… commencing rescue mission."


	20. Chapter 20 Rescue Mission

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Twenty: Rescue Mission**

_Cruise Ship Interior, Mediterranean Sea_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

Only about a third of the lights were on as Chris and Jessica moved down the many corridors of the Queen Zenobia, first passing through what looked like passenger cabins, and then moving into what looked like some kind of dining room. It was a real fancy one too, with real wooden tables, clean white tablecloths, and silverware that was still shining after a year of neglect. Everything was a bit dusty, but that was to be expected, however the only footprints visible in the dust were their own.

"I don't get it, where's Veltro?" Jessica asked, looking around with her flashlight at the shadowy areas not lit up with the dim fixtures. "Where's… anyone?"

"I don't know." Chris replied, picking up one of the china plates and the setting it back down. "It's like this place is just as empty as the airport was up north."

Continuing on, the two of them left the dining room and passed through a door into a short corridor that was just as empty, before reaching a door that opened up into a place that took both of them by surprise. The word _CASINO_ was written on a large illuminated sign that slowly spun around on top of a decorative fountain, and there were gambling tables spaced around the room with cards and chips scattered across as if everyone was in the middle of a game when… well, judging by how much dust was on top of them, since the Terragrigia Panic.

Even some of the slot machines were still lit up, with some quarters on the carpet as if someone had just received a small payout before having to leave in a hurry, so Jessica stopped for a second long enough to pick one of them up. Placing the coin into the slot, the young woman pulled the handle, leaving Chris to eagerly watch as the three rows of symbols quickly spun around. The first one stopped on a crown… as did the second one… and then a spinning yellow light on top of the machine came to life just as a buzzer sounded.

"Of course." Jessica said, frowning as an unbelievable amount of quarters began falling out of the machine. "Of-_fucking_-course it has to happen when I have no way to carry my winnings back with me. Sorry, Chris, looks like we can't do the _Elvis _wedding now."

"Yeah, that's too bad." He replied, laughing a little as the quarters just kept coming out of the machine. "Tell you the truth, I always wanted the _Shaft_ wedding."

The young woman winked at him and stuck out her tongue as the quarters kept coming, and now she had to kick some of them off her boots in order to step away from the growing pile. She cussed at them, calling them stupid coins anyway, but the Agent didn't agree with her… after all, a quarter had saved his life once back at the Spencer Estate… but where the hell _was_ everyone? No sign of Jill or Parker, no sign of Veltro, hell not even any sign of their virus or BOW's, or anything.

But they had to be there; Jill and Parker's last transmission said that they had found the Queen Zenobia adrift and without power and… hey, wait a second that's it! There wasn't any power and now some of the lights were on, so maybe the two of them were down in the engineering decks trying to restore power and engines. Hell, it was probably a complicated procedure, and they had spent the whole time down there, which explained why _this_ part of the ship was untouched… no one had reached it yet.

If that was true, then it was possible that Veltro hadn't gotten there yet either, but that transmission had come from somewhere in the Mediterranean, so there probably wasn't much time. Leaving the casino through the nearest door, Chris was hoping to find a floor map, but the next best thing was a directory sign that pointed him toward the nearest stairwell. He and Jessica moved at a quicker pace since Veltro's search party could have arrived at any moment, and once they reached the stairwell, there was an arrow on the next directory sign that pointed down next to the word _ENGINERING_.

Thing was, there were a lot of decks on a ship this size, so by the time the two of them reached the right one, both the Agent and Jessica were out of breath. They leaned on the railing, coughing and laughing at each other for a second before trying the latch, and like on the sun deck, this door was unlocked, too. Still, except for a slight humming in the grated metal floor, which Chris assumed was the backup generator or something, there were absolutely no signs of life. Where were they?

_Queen Zenobia Power Room_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

"Help!" Parker screamed at the top of his lungs. "Help, someone! Anyone!"

After climbing up the stairs to the room's second level and discovering that there was no exit, Jill and the big man were forced to go all the way to the top, but again there was no way out… and the water was still rising. Now passing the guardrail of the second level catwalk, with no sign of stopping any time soon, the freezing water just kept flowing out of the destroyed pipe as if it were an enemy who was seeking their deaths.

"Come on, someone help!" The big man continued, watching in horror as the water reached the start of the steps up to where they were. "I don't care if you're Veltro, just help us!"

"Don't give up, Parker." Jill said, trying to control her nervous breathing while she also watched the approaching water. "There has to be a way out of here… there just _has_ to… I… I don't wanna die here."

But as much as the two of them had searched around all three levels of this place, there were no more hatches or ways out, and the brunette was pretty sure that if the Veltro survivors knew they were in there… well, they probably weren't going to rush in and save them. Jill hated to admit it, but she was scared, so much so that she was gripping the railing tight enough to have white knuckles.

"Chris… help." She whispered as the water reached the next step.

It was becoming harder for her to think without panicking, because even in the worst situations of her life, namely being chased all across Raccoon City by the Pursuer, there had always been a way out no matter how painful or costly it was, but here… here she and the big man were just… they were just trapped. So she ran around the catwalk again, frantically searching for something that they missed, and then she startled the hell out Parker when she climbed up onto the railing and dove down into the water.

Swimming as far down as she could go and then searching around until being forced to surface, the brunette had found nothing that could help them, and now the water was even closer to where Parker was standing. No, there just had to be another way out than just those two hatches at the bottom, or else how in the hell had the enhanced monster managed to get in? It had just fallen down from above, but why would it have climbed all the way up there in the first place? Unless…

"Parker, get in the water!" She exclaimed after looking up. "Parker, get in the water right now, there's not much time!"

_Cruise Ship Engineering, Mediterranean Sea_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

"I think we should go this way." Chris said as he looked at the next directory sign. "If Jill and Parker are trying to bring everything back online, then my guess is the power room."

"Parker's gonna owe me big for saving his ass again." The young woman replied while following his lead. "I made him buy me a steak dinner after I saved him from a Hunter on Terragrigia… so I'm thinking this time it's gonna be lobster."

Letting out a polite snicker, the Agent was too focused on following the signs to the power room to really listen to what Jessica was saying. Then there it was; after rounding a few more corridors that he would have totally gotten lost in without the directory signs, the door to the power room was right in front of him. If Jill and Parker were anywhere onboard, then this was the most likely spot, so he turned the wheel on the hatch and pushed it open to reveal… nothing. The chamber was really tall, with the generator kind of sparking behind the glass wall in its own sealed room, but there was no sign of anyone on any of the chamber's three levels.

"Damn it." The Agent said with a sigh. "I thought for sure they'd be down here."

"Chris." Jessica replied urgently, smacking him on the shoulder to get his attention. "Chris, look over there… what was the name of this ship again?"

He was about to say that this ship was called the Queen Zenobia, but when Chris turned around and saw what she was pointing to, his words just stopped as he understood why they couldn't find Jill and Parker. Because on the wall behind them, just above the hatch was a large display screen that showed the primary power junctions of the ship… and underneath the display was a metal plaque that read the words:

_QUEEN SEMIRAMUS_

"Oh, my God." Chris whispered, turning on his radio. "O'Brian, those coordinates sent us to the Queen Semiramus. Can you hear me? Jessica and I are on the wrong damn ship."

There was no response at all from the radio, probably because of the walls in this part of the ship, so the Agent turned around and ran back out of the power room with Jessica following close behind. They had to get back to the sun deck and have the pilot resume the search for the Queen Zenobia immediately… God damn it, all that time wasted, and now Jill could have been in even more danger than before.

_Queen Zenobia Power Room_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

From where she was floating in the center of the room, Jill had been able to see an open air duct, presumably where the monster had dropped down from, but if she hadn't dove down in desperation, then they would never have found it, and probably drowned. Only thing was, the duct was all the way at the ceiling, so the two of them had to float in the water until it brought them up high enough to climb in. The good news was that this gave them a possible escape route… but they needed to move fast because the water was already starting to follow them into the duct.


	21. Chapter 21 I Found You

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Twenty One: I Found You**

_Queen Zenobia Engineering Decks_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

Crawling through the air duct as quickly as she could, Jill was trying not to panic again as the water not only flowed past her hands and knees, but also started to rise again less than a minute later. After everything that had been going on for the past several hours, fatigue was setting in, and the freezing temperature of the water wasn't helping… that, and the fact that she wasn't exactly twenty three years old any more like during Raccoon City. Sure, thirty three wasn't exactly old, but ten years made a lot of difference.

This vent sloped slightly upward for the longest time, and the finally reached a junction where the water flowed off to who knows where instead of rising further, and a short distance later another vent cover was discovered. It was easy enough to open, swinging down once the hook was removed, allowing the two of them to follow it into a different part of engineering. The floor was no longer grated, instead mostly concrete, and filled with different sized pipes that ran along the walls. Of course, there was water starting to pour in through each vent now, and if it wasn't stopped soon… hell, the whole ship could sink.

"_Luciani, can you hear me_?" A partially distorted voice came from the big man's radio. "_Parker, you need to answer the damn radio, right the hell now_!"

"Raymond, is that you?" Parker asked, still trying to stretch out his back from crawling for so long. "We got the power back on, did you reach anyone?"

The short answer to that was _no he did not_, with an added explanation of the equipment in the emergency communications room not broadcasting. From what the young man could tell by looking at the error screen, it looked like the ships main broadcast antenna was either disconnected or damaged, and honestly Raymond didn't have the skills to be able to repair it. Great, the brunette thought as the water coming from the vents increased, now they had _two_ problems, and probably not enough time to handle both.

"We're gonna have to split up." She said, hating the idea but not seeing an alternative. "You go back upstairs and help Raymond with the antenna, and I'll find a way to stop the water flow… maybe I can pump it out or something, right? Don't ships have things in place for that?"

"I'm not going to leave you alone down here." The big man replied. "You go up with Raymond, and _I'll_ try to close the emergency bulkheads… probably in the bilge system."

That was a nice idea, but just like the young man, Jill _also_ didn't know how to repair a broadcast antenna, but closing a bulkhead or whatever shouldn't have been too hard. There was no time to argue, so Parker eventually gave in, cursing to himself as he started running through the already inch deep water. A few seconds later the big man was gone, on his way to drier parts of the ship, and leaving the brunette to find where the _bilge_ was. Luckily for her, there was another directory sign on the wall at the nearest junction, and using the arrows just like they had done before, she made her way toward the area marked _BILGE_.

Having lost track of which deck she was on because of all the swimming and crawling through the ducts, the brunette was just blindly following the directory signs, until suddenly everything started to look familiar. Yeah, even though there were lights now instead of just having to use her flashlight for everything, the way this part of the deck looked… it was like she had been there before. Anyway, the hatch with the word bilge painted above was around the next corner, but the wheel was stuck. It didn't feel locked or anything, just rusted shut from a year of neglect, so she put her foot against the frame for leverage and pulled…

_Screech_! Gasping with surprise when the wheel worked itself loose, Jill fell on her ass when it suddenly started turning freely, but at least now the door was open. Yeah, another familiar looking room, but she could solve that mystery once the bulkheads around the power room were sealed. Now that power was restored, the indicator lights on the room's control panel were lit up, but they were all flashing red with the word _FLOODING_ displayed in digital letters on the error screen.

On the second screen a message was slowly scrolling across with the words _ACTIVATE BULKHEADS_ moving past the screen like a marquis from an old electric sign form the 90's, but how was she supposed to activate them. A single one of the panel's many buttons was flashing red, so the brunette shrugged her shoulders before pushing it, and then the whole room started to vibrate. She couldn't see what was happening, but after a while the indicator lights turned green, and out in the hallway she could see through the long window that the water was no longer rising.

"Parker, I think that did it." She said into the radio while turning away from the panel. "The flooding has been contained, and I think the rest of the water will get pumped out on its own over… oh crap."

"Jill, I can barely hear you." The big man's voice replied through static. "We've reached the antenna, but once we fix it you'll need to go to the communications room and transmit through the ship's systems. I have to stay up here in case anything goes wrong with the antenna, okay, Jill?"

Only half listening to the last part, now that the first crisis was over, Jill relaxed enough to take a good look around the room, and it was only after seeing the large blood stain on the long window that the brunette remembered where she had seen it before. When she and Parker had just boarded the Queen Zenobia, she had chased that blonde woman, Rachael or whoever, down here into the bilge, and then… that blood stain was where she had been killed by the ooze monster… only thing was… the blonde woman's body was gone.

"_I see you_." A soft, feminine voice said, seemingly form everywhere at once. "_Lovely… lovely girl."_

Taking out her pistol and searching the area with her flashlight, Jill did a quick spin around, but saw nothing. That same soft, almost soothing laughter filled the air like the owner of the voice was giggling, but the brunette had no intention of just waiting there to find out where the creepiest thing she had ever heard in her life was coming from. So she looked at the controls one more time to make sure that everything was still showing green, and then Jill turned to start toward the open hatch… just in time to see someone's arm pulling it the rest of the way open.

_Screech_! Once the hatch was open, a tall, slender woman ducked down so that she could step through into the chamber, but it wasn't until her new companion stood up to her full height and slammed the hatch shut again, that the brunette realized how much danger she was in. Standing well over six feet tall, the woman's body was shapely and attractive, but her left arm looked like everything forward of the elbow had been literally split in half almost like another appendage, and her face…

Long blonde hair covered half of her face, with the visible part being discolored, with a completely black eye and a mouth full of slightly sharpened, yellowed teeth… had this thing really once been Rachael? _Bang! Bang!_ Aiming at the exposed part of its face and pulling the trigger, one bullet struck this creature in the cheek while the other one went into the side of its nose, not doing much damage at all. While clearly infected, this monster wasn't spilling ooze on the floor, nor was its skin boiling off like when the enhanced one was hit by fire, and now it was just… standing there.

"_I found you_." The female creature whispered, standing with its shoulders hunched and hanging its head so that all the hair was hanging down. "_Lovely girl… come to Rachael._"

Yeah, that was not going to happen, so Jill turned and ran for the other hatch, firing a shot blindly behind her that probably hit the wall instead of the monster, and then grabbing the wheel to open it. Unlike all the other hatches onboard the Queen Zenobia, this one's wheel spun freely, allowing her to shove open the hatch and duck through… only to cry out in agony when the monster's hand grabbed onto her ponytail. With her head tilted back as far as it would go, Rachael dragged the brunette back into the room, restraining her like that with one hand while her separated arm was used to close the hatch… before ripping off the wheel.

Thankfully, even with the monster's enhanced strength, the feat of ripping off the wheel from a steel door took time, which Jill used to scramble back to the other door, the one she came in. Since it was left open, the brunette was able to dive through it while Rachael screamed in rage, giving chase a second later. It was only because of her head start that Jill was able to slam the hatch in the monster's face, spin the wheel, and then push down the emergency lock before Rachael could open it again. This didn't mean that she was safe, though, so the brunette took off running back down the corridor.

With the bulkheads sealed, hopefully the couple inches of water on the floor would be pumped out over time, but Jill couldn't worry about that right now since with her luck the monster would be able to free itself from the bilge before too long. Now that she had a second to think while trying to find her way back to the stairs, it didn't seem right to simply call Rachael a monster. With the ability to speak think still within her, it was more appropriate to consider her some kind of Tyrant. Well, not really like the Pursuer, but also not quite like Wesker… somewhere in the middle?

Actually it didn't matter, since as soon as she was able to regroup with the others, the first thing Jill wanted to do was destroy the Tyrant before she could hurt anyone else. Good thing the stairwell was just around the corner according to the directory signs. Taking a look back to make sure that she wasn't being followed, the brunette rounded the last corner, looking ahead again just in time to run face first into Rachel's chest. Before Jill could react, the Tyrant grabbed her by the arms and swung her around so that she was forced into one of the darkened corners, and now she was trapped… arms pinned while Rachael's infected eyes looked down at her.

"_You're not leaving… so soon_?" The Tyrant whispered, leaning her head down so that they were at eye level. "_I just found you… and now… you're mine_."


	22. Chapter 22 Rachael

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Twenty Two: Rachael**

_Queen Zenobia Bilge System_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

"_So soft… so weak_." Rachael whispered, her head tilting back and forth while not an inch from Jill's face. "_I was weak too… I didn't want to… didn't want to come here. Were you scared… too?_"

Jill struggled to free herself from the Tyrant's grip, but she was just too strong, and no matter how she kicked and twisted herself, the brunette couldn't gain an inch. The grip on her forearms was so tight that she couldn't help groaning each time the Tyrant's fingers moved at all, and this seemed to amuse her captor… or maybe not. The still mostly human face looked like it was starting to smile one moment, only to scowl the next… damn it, Jill couldn't reach her pistol or her knife, not that either weapon had proved effective against these creatures so far.

"Rachael, _please_, if you're still in there you've got to listen to me." The brunette pleaded. "I'm sorry for what happened to you, I _really_ am, but Veltro is going to infect the _entire ocean_ with T-Abyss if I don't do something. Do you remember your mission? Do you remember the FBC? Rachael, please, you've got to help me."

"_Veltro… FBC… BSAA… no, all pawns… in a game_." The Tyrant replied, suddenly lifting Jill up by her arms so that they were at eye level. "_Light is the enemy… the light burns… the light hurts… stay in the dark… stay with me… be same as me_."

This whole time they had been onboard the Queen Zenobia, somehow it hadn't clicked in Jill's mind that it was light that was hurting the monsters they encountered. That was why she and Parker had been able to fight off the first ooze monster and Rachael hadn't… because she didn't have a flashlight when it came for her in the dark. That was why the bigger monsters reacted so violently to fire, not because it was burning them, but because it was generating light all around with no way for it to escape.

Again Jill tried to reason with the Tyrant, hoping that somehow she could get through to the human part of Rachael if there still was one, but this creature seemed like it was only speaking to react to her words without actually being aware of what was being said. So she resumed trying to escape by head-butting the Tyrant right in the face, and then bringing up both legs to kick her in the stomach. Although Rachael took a step back from these attacks, she was pretty much unaffected, but then the Tyrant curled back her lips to expose her sharpened teeth… before sinking them into the brunette's shoulder.

Shocked and unable to help herself from the pain, Jill shrieked when those teeth broke her skin, and continued to cry out while flailing around desperately to escape, but Rachael kept biting down deeper and deeper. Eventually she stopped, ripping her teeth back out and then dropping the brunette onto the floor, and then not attacking again while Jill scooted away. The pain in her shoulder was intense, with blood running from the dozen or so punctures down her clothes and into the water, hurting so badly that tears were running form her eyes… but the Tyrant was just standing there like she was waiting for something.

"_No change_?" Rachael asked, tilting her head to the side. "_No change… no change… no change… no, be like me… be like me… need more_."

The Tyrant curled her lips back again while bending down to reach for her, but instead of holding her wound, the brunette had been using her other hand to take the knife out of its sheath. As soon as Rachael was close enough, Jill stabbed upward with all her strength, ramming the blade up through her jaw to the hilt, and making Tyrant groan while jumping backwards. Even though it hurt incredibly bad to move, the brunette took off, running away from the stairwell and blindly turning down the first corner she came to.

In her current condition there was no way that Jill could outrun Rachael on the stairs, but now that the power was back on maybe the elevator was working… God, why hadn't she thought of that before? Rounding corner after corner, and following the directory signs that said _ELEVATOR_, the brunette hoped that she could both stay ahead of Rachael, and that she was so far gone that this escape plan wouldn't be noticed. Somewhere behind her the Tyrant was growling with anger, with those surprisingly light and agile footsteps heard searching the corridors for her.

Jill couldn't risk calling for help on the radio since Rachael might hear her, so she just kept going until finally the elevator appeared. Pushing the button as soon as she reached the doors, she was just about out of strength, leaning heavily on the doorframe and trying not to cry out again from how badly her shoulder was hurting. She was terrified that any second now the Tyrant would find her and it would be all over, but by some miracle she was still undiscovered when there was a soft _ding_ just before the doors opened.

Basically falling into the elevator car and then kicking the highest button she could reach with her foot, Jill's heart skipped a beat when she saw Rachael come around the corner, but thankfully the doors closed again before the Tyrant could get there. Running as fast as she probably could, Rachael was just a second too late, and now the brunette could hear her pounding on the door, screaming in rage while the car started moving upward. Jill wasn't sure what button she had managed to kick, but anywhere was better than the bilge, so she took a moment to try and catch her breath while cradling the wound in her shoulder.

With another soft _ding_, the elevator stopped with the doors opening to a place that looked familiar, and when she crawled out of the car, the brunette gasped when she saw that she was back on the promenade. This was exactly where she needed to be, so she struggled to get to her feet, and made her way across the dimly illuminated shopping area, which didn't look so big now that she could see the whole thing at once. This was also where they had discovered the mutated communications officer… good thing that battle was over with, and now there was nothing to stop her from entering the emergency communications room.

"Please have one in there. "She said to herself, crying out again from pain as she entered the room. "Come on, there has to be… yes!"

Aside from the radio, the thing she wanted most from this room was the white box mounted on the wall in the corner that had the words First Aid written across the front. After her little adventure in Antarctica, Chris's sister had told her about a strange herb that Alexia had used to save her life… an herb which unfortunately only grew in the Arklay Mountains, which by that time had been nuked to high hell. Long story short, there were none of these _magic herbs_ around anymore, so Jill had to make due with the year old contents of the first aid box.

The bandages were old, while the ointments and pain killers were expired, but right now it was better than nothing, so the brunette cleaned and disinfected the bite on her shoulder, even though she didn't have to worry about getting infected with the virus thanks to Daylight. Having to take off her shirt in order to bandage the wound, she wrapped it as best she could, and then about six pain killers later she put her shirt back on and sat down in the chair next to the emergency radio.

"Parker, this is Jill." She said into her radio, trying not to strain her voice so much. "I sealed the bulkheads… how's the antenna?"

"_We're just about there_." The big man's voice replied. "_Raymond went to check some of the wiring down below, but uh… Jill, are you okay_?"

Yeah she was okay now, but Parker was still concerned after hearing the about the whole encounter with Tyrant Rachael. She agreed with him that none of them should be alone right now, but at the moment the most important thing was getting the ship's broadcast antenna working. The big man seemed satisfied when she told him that she would lock the door until they could regroup, since the door had contained the communications officer for a year, and it was actually nice for her to be able to sit there for a few minutes without worrying about being attacked.

"_All right, that should just about do it_." Parker reported about ten minutes later. "_Run a test sequence with the radio, and then try it if the board lights up green_."

Following the big man's instructions, Jill set the radio to do a diagnostic, and after a few seconds everything checked out, so she set the tuner to headquarters' frequency and tried to make contact. It took a couple tried, but eventually it worked, and the brunette had never been happier to hear O'Brian's voice, even though everything she proceeded to report was bad news. She told him everything that had happened ever since getting ambushed by Veltro, which was a total shit show, but thankfully there was a little bit of good news: Chris and Jessica were never onboard the Queen Zenobia in the first place, and now that the ship's tracking signal was reactivated, their helicopter could…

"_Hold on a second, Jill_." The Director suddenly said. "_I'm getting an emergency call_."

What could possibly be more important than hearing from two agents who went missing on a ship full of terrorists and BOW's, she wondered as the conversation was stopped? Now there was nothing but silence again, aside from Parker interrupting to ask if she had made contact, and his reaction to _being put on hold_ was not exactly as civil as hers. Turning off her personal radio so that she didn't have to hear any more Italian curse words, the brunette sat there in silence for what felt like the longest time, before the line came active again.

"_I hate to say this, but your day just got worse, Jill_." O'Brian explained. "_That emergency call was from the European Security Force, they uh… just reported satellite movement… movement that started about a minute after the Queen Zenobia's tracker came online_."

The message from the ESF was a simple one; Terragrigia's solar energy integrator, Regia SOLUS, had been reactivated. Not only that, but its thrusters had come online as well, changing its orbital position to put it on a course that would have it directly over the Queen Zenobia in a matter of minutes. But that didn't make any sense; only a few select people in official government positions had access to the now useless satellite, but what did they plan to do? Ignore Veltro's ultimatum and just evaporate the ship with _tons_ of T-Abyss stored somewhere onboard?

"_Regardless of the details, Regia SOLUS is coming for you_." The Director said. "_And Chris's helicopter isn't going to get there in time_."


	23. Chapter 23 Target Acquired

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Twenty Three: Target Acquired**

_BSAA Regional Headquarters_

_Birzebbuga, Malta_

_February 3__rd__, 2007_

"_Director, if that satellite's coming, you have to get us out of here_!" Jill's voice exclaimed. "_Send another helicopter, or something_!"

Sitting there at his desk in BSAA Headquarters, O'Brian felt pretty useless at this exact moment. He knew that eventually there would be an extreme response to the threats coming from the resurrected Veltro, but the Director hadn't anticipated that it would come from Regia SOLUS less than a minute after the Queen Zenobia started emitting a tracking signal. As much as he wanted to pull his people out, there was just no way for it to happen, mostly because Chris's helicopter was the closest thing to them, and even if it wasn't, there really were no other aircraft available.

"_O'Brian, say something_!" The brunette demanded. "_Director, we need help, and we need it right the hell now_!"

Close to pulling his own hair out, the Director didn't know what he was supposed to tell them; he couldn't move heaven and earth to magically transport them out of danger, and even if they took their chances in a lifeboat or something, the blast radius of the satellite was big enough to cook an entire city… they would be vaporized. Looking up at the ceiling in desperation, and then back at the monitor screen that showed the satellite flying toward the Queen Zenobia, O'Brian was about to bury his face in his hands… but then he saw something else through the large window in his office.

Out there in the common area, Amelia Ashland was sitting with her legs crossed at one of the tables, dunking a doughnut into her coffee like she didn't have a care in the world. To be fair, it was impossible for the brown haired woman to have known what was happening with the satellite, and she was only still in the building because she was worried about Chris… but if the Director remembered correctly from what he had heard during that first tour of Terragrigia, Amelia had not only designed the city… but Regia SOLUS as well.

"_O'Brian, you can't just let this happen_!" Jill's voice continued. "We're trapped here, and if this ship is destroyed, then the virus will be released into the Mediterranean! You've got to do something!"

"Stand by, Jill." He sharply replied, standing up from his chair. "I've got an idea."

Hanging up the line, and rushing out to the common area where Ms. Ashland was sitting, the Director was so panicked and excited that his first attempt to tell her what was going on didn't make any sense, causing her to raise an eyebrow at him. So he tried again, with getting it a little closer this time but not enough, so O'Brian just grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. Amelia followed, although clearly not happy with being led around like a dog, but this slight feeling of annoyance quickly faded from her voice when she saw the screen that was tracking the satellite.

"Regia SOLUS?" She asked, putting her hands on her hips. "That thing ain't even supposed to be _on_ right now; why is my satellite movin', Director?"

"Ms. Ashland, someone is using your satellite to target the Queen Zenobia." O'Brian explained, pointing to the screen. "Now I've got two agents already on that ship, and Chris trying to save them in a helicopter, but if that thing fires then all of them will be caught in the blast… can you stop it?"

He sighed with relief when she replied that it was possible to stop the satellite, but if someone else's authorized hand was already on the trigger, then it wasn't going to be as easy as throwing a switch. As for its course change, the thrust computers were actually based on an old design from NASA, so the course change program had to be completed before a new one could be entered, so nothing could stop it from moving into position, but there were a few options between then and the firing sequence.

Nudging O'Brian out of the way, and then sitting down at his desk, Amelia was able to access the secured functions of his computer in seconds even though he hadn't told her any of the passwords, and soon a green wire-frame model of Regia SOLUS was displayed on the screen behind what looked like an old fashioned DOS command prompt. Now typing in a bunch of code that the Director was not familiar with, as soon as the brown haired woman hit enter, the screen changed to an old fashioned looking display of the satellite's current heading and mission program.

"Gimme that radio." She said, taking the receiver from him. "Jill? Amelia Ashland here, sugar; now don't you worry that pretty little head of yours, cause we're gonna make everythin' right as rain."

"_Ms. Ashland, thank God_." Jill's voice replied. "_Chris said you built that thing up there, so can you stop it_?"

While they were talking the satellite finished its course change, and according to her display on the computer it was now angling itself to discharge the collected solar energy. Now like Amelia said, she couldn't flat out stop it, but what she _could_ do was distract the whole system by requesting a full system self-diagnostic just before the firing sequence began, forcing it to wait until the check was complete before resuming the original program. The only problem was that this only bought them a few minutes and could only be done a handful of times before the onboard computer was satisfied that everything was in order.

"All right, sugar, I bought ya'll some time." Ms. Ashland said into the radio. "I can't stop it firin' from here, but I _can _confuse the targetin' sensor by makin' it think somethin' else is that boat. Problem is its gotta be close so the system don't figure out what I done."

"_Another target that's close_?" Jill's voice asked with uncertainty. "_How close, and uh… another target like what_?"

Amelia shrugged and simply replied that it could be anything, like a nearby signal buoy, or if they set one of the life boats to head away from the ship at full speed, or even a small island they were next to… basically anything but water. Now it was the brunette's turn to tell them to hold on for a minute, and then the line went dead, leaving O'Brian and Ms. Ashland to just sit there for the next couple minutes. The satellite's diagnostic finished during this time, so she just inputted the command again to restart the process, and honestly the Director was feeling kind of useless during this whole affair.

"Thank you so much for helping us, Ms. Ashland." He said with that old nervousness returning. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Why yes, you surely can." Amelia replied while watching the changing information on the screen. "I'd just _love_ another cup of coffee, if it ain't too much trouble; two cream, two sugars, and none of that decaf stuff."

This wasn't exactly the kind of thing that a regional Director of the BSAA was used to doing for people… well, maybe if _Director Burton_ came in for a visit, but… oh well, it was better than just standing there. So O'Brian left the office and walked over to the coffee pot to get her a cup, putting in two cream and two sugars and stirring it around before walking back into the office where Ms. Ashland was just getting back on the radio with Jill and Parker… but the news wasn't good.

"I _know_ you ain't got much to work with." She said into the receiver. "But darlin', that satellite's not gonna wait forever, so you gotta gimme _somethin_'."

"_We're trying, we're trying_." Parker's voice replied next. "_But we're out in the middle of the Mediterranean, so there's no buoys or islands, and all of the Queen Zenobia's lifeboats are gone_."

Ms. Ashland rolled her eyes while silently mocking the big man, before politely asking to speak with Jill again, while bringing up another window on the computer. This time it was a digital image of the Queen Zenobia, with a manifest of all the equipment that was onboard, or at least everything that was registered to be there at the time of the Terragrigia Panic. Reading and scrolling through the list faster than the Director could follow, but just getting more and more agitated since none of it was useful, until…

"Hold on a minute, what was _that_?" Amelia asked, scrolling back to another item. "Now, why would somethin' like _that_ be delivered to a cruise liner?"

O'Brian looked at the screen, and at first the picture next to the description looked like an airplane, but then he read it and saw that it was a _UAV_, one of those unmanned drone things. Apparently there were three of them onboard the ship for some reason, but they might be exactly what was needed if they worked… and were even still there. Once again the only problem was how much time was left, because Amelia had to reset the diagnostic again when time ran out.

"Okay, sugar, listen up." She said, picking up the radio. "I got a plan, but it's a _doozey_, and you're gonna have to move fast. Now, way down in the ship's hold you're gonna find some big wooden crates with the letters _U-A-V_ written on the side. Okay, that there's the easy part, now pay attention, and here's what I'm wantin' ya'll to do…


	24. Chapter 24 Regia SOLUS

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Twenty Four: Regia SOLUS**

_Queen Zenobia Foredeck_

_February 4th, 2007_

Jill's watch beeped, signaling that it was midnight just as she and Parker rushed into the place where Amelia said there were some UAV's being stored. While not a typical item to be found on a luxury cruise liner, their presence meant that Veltro must have had possession of the Queen Zenobia since even before the Terragrigia Panic, since it was UAV's that had been used to spread the gas cloud. Only a single crate remained, but one was all they needed, so the two of them followed Ms. Ashland's instructions; loading the crate onto a pallet-jack, and wheeling it back to the elevator.

"So, we not only have to bring this to the foredeck, and assemble it?" The big man asked as the doors closed. "But we also have to launch it away from the ship within _twenty minutes_?"

"That's what she said." Jill replied, watching the floor counter going up. "I know its tight, Parker, but it's the only chance we have of not getting vaporized like Terragrigia."

Even though it took no longer for the elevator to go back up than it had done to get down, everything felt like it was taking forever, thanks to the countdown. Once back on the deck, the brunette looked up into the clear night sky as they wheeled the crate onto the foredeck, and aside from the moon, the brightest thing she could see was the distinct flashing of the Regia SOLUS satellite while it was torn between the firing program and Amelia's diagnostic requests. Better not to look at it, she thought while unloading the crate and starting to open it… had to stay on the task at hand.

It was a good thing that they had twenty minutes, because with as complicated as the assembly instructions for this thing were, and the sheer number of parts that needed to be attached, they were going to need every second. Thankfully the paper inside gave a step by step guide to making the thing work, but that damn time limit made both her and Parker nervous and clumsy about the whole thing. Each time the brunette dropped a bolt or couldn't find a corresponding part it felt like they lost a whole minute when in reality maybe a second or two had passed, and it was really hard to resist the urge to look up.

"_Jill, ya'll gotta hurry_." Amelia's voice said over the radio. "_I just started the last diagnostic, it's gonna start firin' in the next couple minutes_."

At that point the UAV, which really did look like a tiny airplane, was assembled, but Parker was still working on the control unit, which they needed in order to make sure the thing didn't crash immediately after takeoff. While the big man was finishing that, Jill moved the launcher into position facing the guardrail so that it would move away from the ship as fast as possible, but then a knot formed in her stomach when Ms. Ashland announced that they were out of time.

Just about the same time as she had spoken those words, the flashing light that had been coming from the satellite became steady, actually starting to get brighter as the collected energy prepared to be discharged. Parker was still struggling to get the control unit working, but there was no time left, so the brunette slammed her hand down on the launch button, praying that the UAV would do something other than take an immediate nose-dive since there was no way to control it.

For a second it looked like that was going to happen, but then an updraft must have hit it or something, because the UAV leveled off and continued on a mostly straight course as it flew away from the ship. Up above the light was getting brighter and brighter as the satellite ran its program, and while Jill was expecting an intense energy blast of some kind, what she got instead looked like a beam of sunlight. Turning the sky around them blue and raising the temperature with golden light as if it were late in the morning instead of midnight, the scene was beautiful… especially the part about how the light wasn't shining down on the Queen Zenobia.

Although the UAV hadn't gotten as far from the ship as everyone would have liked before the light and heat burned it up into nothing, it was enough to confuse the satellite into missing its mark. So instead of destroying the cruise ship, all of the collected solar energy was sent directly into the ocean... where it started to boil the water so intensely that the seas were becoming rough. As the water being burned off evaporated, the surrounding ocean rushed in to replace it, causing not only a cloud of steam that looked like fog… but also creating a massive tidal wave that was going out in all directions.

"Oh shit." The brunette whispered as the approaching wall of water got even higher. "Get inside… Parker, get inside!"

When she turned to look at him, the big man was already running for the nearest door, so Jill followed, with the whole ship already starting to rock to the side from the wave. Hanging onto the railing so as not to slip, Parker reached the hatch first, pulling it open, and then reaching out his hand to help her. She had to jump to grab his hand in order to make it before the wave hit, and the big man pulled her inside, slamming the door shut just before everything rocked sideways so violently that Jill was thrown from her feet.

At first Parker caught her by looping his arm around her waist, but then he was thrown as well once the Queen Zenobia felt the full force of the wave. For a minute there it looked like the whole ship was going to capsize, but then it slowly started to level off, with the big man keeping his grip around her waist until long after everything became calm again. Alarms were now sounding throughout the ship, probably to get the crew's attention as a result of that close call… too bad the crew was long gone.

Resting for a couple minutes, until Parker finally let go of her, the two of them were a bit shaky getting to their feet, but eventually they were able to open the hatch again and walk back out onto the soaked foredeck. The light from Regia SOLUS was gone, with the seas calm and dark again like they should have been at night, but with one added sound, this time a welcome one. It was that of an approaching helicopter.

"_Jill, Parker, come in_." Chris's voice crackled through the radio. "_Are you all right_?"

"Chris?! Thank God, you're all right!" Jill exclaimed once the moment of shock wore off. "I was worried your helicopter would get caught in the blast… but yeah, we're all right, and uh… we need a ride home."

Laughing a little at the last part, the Agent informed them that the landing zone on these ships was in the middle, so they would have to go back through the interior in order to reach him once he landed. That wasn't a problem, since the biggest danger was past, allowing her and Parker to catch their breath while beginning the walk. There was still a possibility of more monsters lurking around, as well as Rachael still somewhere on the lower decks, but so far nothing happened to obstruct them… at least, not until this path brought the two of them into the ship's casino… where someone was slowly clapping their hands.

"Veltro!" Parker yelled, drawing his pistol and aiming at the figure standing on the upper level balcony. "And here I was starting to think that you all jumped ship like the rats you are."

Yeah, it was him, the brunette realized after looking up and seeing the familiar gas mask… the same one that she had looked into before passing out during that ambush with the fake Chris. So, the bioterrorists really were onboard this whole time, but why were they only showing their faces now? And more importantly… where were the others? The figure standing up there on the balcony was grandstanding in a larger than life sort of way, but he was completely alone, whereas cowards like them usually preferred to have numbers on their side.

"_There is no need for weapons, Agents of the BSAA, for I come under a banner of peace_." The figure said, his voice obscured by his mask. "_You have stopped the fury of Regia SOLUS, and now in gratitude I shall reveal all I know_."

Even if they had saved the lives of the survivors of the organization, why would a member of Veltro just walk up to them and start giving away secrets? That wasn't how terrorists usually worked, but yet there he was… and already starting to talk, even though both of them had their weapons drawn. Instead, he invited them to consider a few factors regarding this little mission of theirs, beginning with whether or not they wondered why the Queen Zenobia had taken so long to find? How had it floated through the Mediterranean undetected for a year?

"_I also ask you to consider how it was that all traces of Veltro disappeared after the destruction of Terragrigia_." The figure continued, turning away from them and then slowly walking down the stairs to their level. "_Leaving no trace for a year, but then reappearing stronger than ever, with a fully functional plan to threaten the world_."

Lastly, the figure wanted them to ask themselves why someone would use Regia SOLUS to destroy a ship that they knew was filed with liquid tons of a deadly virus? All of these were valid points, with the figure now walking across the casino toward them while keeping his hands up, and then he added that it was preferable for the two of them to discover the answers for themselves. With a flick of his wrist, something was produce from his sleeve, but then everyone jumped in reaction to a sudden gunshot.

_Bang_! Grunting in shock and agony, the figure grabbed his chest and stumbled backwards, falling against a card table, and then sinking to the floor as two more figures rushed into the room. The first one was Jessica, with her smoking pistol still drawn, while the other was Chris, who quickly pushed her weapon down while demanding to know why she took that shot since the guy's hands were up.

"He just pulled a knife from his sleeve!" The young woman exclaimed. "We have to protect our people, don't we?!"

"It was a _key_, Jessica!" Parker yelled back while kneeling down to check their fallen enemy. "Damn it, don't you dare die… not before you tell us what…

Removing the figure's mask, the big man's words became a gasp of shock when the enemy's face was that of Raymond. The same Raymond who had worked for the FBC and saved them from the mutated communications officer, but… what in the hell was he doing dressed like a member of Veltro? I mean… _was_ he a member of Veltro? Had he been involved in this whole fiasco from the beginning and just been playing them in order to… to what? Infect the world with the T-Abyss virus?

"Take this key." The young man groaned, pushing the object into Parker's hands while blood flowed from his wound. "You need to… you need to find the truth… the truth about… Terragrigia! Parker… Parker…

Grabbing onto the front of the big man's shirt and then pulling him closer, Jill could see that Raymond was whispering something to him, but she couldn't hear the words, nor see enough to try reading his lips. With that, he was gone, leaving even more questions about this mission than there had been before.


	25. Chapter 25 The Lowest Deck

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Twenty Five: The Lowest Deck**

_Queen Zenobia Gambling Casino_

_February 4th, 2007_

Raymond was dead, lying there on the floor of the casino, and without Jill or the others knowing whether or not he was a traitor or… or what? The only clue the young man had managed to give them was the small key in Parker's hand, which actually looked like an elevator key, and although the brunette had asked him what Raymond was whispering about at the end, the big man just shook his head and suggested that they try to discover what it was that he had just died for.

Since the key looked like the kind that would fit in an elevator, the four of them headed toward the nearest one, and now that she was surrounded with comrades, this was the first time that Jill felt completely safe since the whole thing started. The big man was right, the small key fit right into the lock on the elevator's control panel, and then it started moving without a button being pressed. With her eyes on the floor counter, the brunette watched it go all the way down to the lowest deck, but then the car stopped, felt like it was actually moving sideways for a minute, and then resumed its course down.

"A hidden deck with Veltro access?" Chris asked. "Just how long before Terragrigia were those guys in control here?"

With a soft ding as the car came to a stop, the doors slid open to reveal a place that… well, that didn't look like it belonged in the bottom of a cruise ship, that's for sure. For one thing the walls and ceiling were rounded into a single surface that arched over the metal floor, and there were four rows of fluorescent lights that went all the way down the length, providing way more light than what was needed for a long, narrow corridor. The motion of the water outside couldn't be felt at all in that place, meaning that they must have been far below the surface of the ocean, but it was a lot colder too, so… the very underbelly of the ship?

"If I knew all this was here, I would've spent more time searching the Queen Semiramus." Chris commented, his voice echoing as the four of them walked. "Who knows, maybe that ship was a haven for Veltro, too."

"I don't know, Chris." Jill replied as the end of the corridor came in sight. "I didn't know Raymond that well, but I just don't seem him putting something like this together, he seemed… he seemed like too much of a good guy."

"Well, then let's hope we find some answers through that door." Parker added, pointing up ahead. "And let's hope even more that he was wrong."

The brunette wasn't sure what the big man meant by that last part, but for now she turned her attention onto the metal hatch that was in front of them. Actually, no, this thing looked more like the door of a _bank vault_ than a boat hatch, and when Jessica pressed what looked like the release button, an alarm began to sound. Spinning yellow lights activated while two interlocking rings on the surface of the door began to rotate, and then there was a large _hiss_ of steam as the whole thing began to silently swing open, revealing…

"Oh… my… God." Jill remarked as they stepped into the chamber. "Is that… the virus?"

The chamber itself wasn't that big at all, just a rounded area lined with monitoring equipment, and a really big glass tank in the center that had to be holding several hundred tons of the red colored T-Abyss virus, already disbursed in the water. No sign of any more Veltro members, though, which was unexpected, since if there had been any of them around, this was kind of where they should have been. But no… just the four of them, and a whole bunch of bad stuff that looked ready for deployment.

"Uh… okay, so we found the virus." Jessica said, looking around the room. "Now, what do we do with it?"

"We need to stop it from ever getting out." Chris replied, moving toward some of the equipment. "Even if the people who created this stuff were terrorists, they would've been stupid if they didn't create some kind of a failsafe system to protect themselves… you know, like an antigen or something just in case."

This was a pretty solid theory, since even the Umbrella Corporation had created an antivirus, not that its administrators had been too willing to share it with anyone who was at risk, including their own workers. So the search began, with everyone reading through all of the notes and papers that were scattered around before touching anything, because anything that could've been the failsafe system could have also just as easily deployed the virus. When the papers didn't reveal anything but a mixture of really complicated scientific formulas and Veltro propaganda, the group was forced to move on to the computer systems themselves.

"Hey, Parker." Jill said after looking over the central panel for only a couple of seconds. "Remember what you said about this ship having to be idiot-proof in case of emergencies? Do you… I mean, you don't think that extends to secret laboratories of bioterrorist groups, do you?"

"Well no, I wouldn't _think _so." The big man replied as he and the others gathered around that station. "Why, what have you found?"

The answer to that was simple, or rather… overly simple, since the screen on the central computer monitor was displaying an option to disburse the neutralizing agent into the water as if… as if this whole thing had been prepared for them to find. But that was stupid, no one had even known about the Queen Zenobia until Veltro supposedly faked Chris's tracker signal and lured them on… or had that all been bullshit, too? Then again, if all of this was bullshit, how did they explain the monsters, and Rachael, and the attack using Regia SOLUS?

"Could it be some kind of trick?" Chris asked, looking nervously at the others. "Like something set up so that we think we're stopping the virus, but actually deploying it?"

"But, that would be dumb." Jessica suggested. "Why would Veltro go through all the trouble of setting that up, when they could just throw the switch themselves? They're terrorists, not… _Bond villains_."

So there they were, just standing there next to a virus that could in theory infect more than a fifth of the world's waters, and none of them could decide what to do. There was debate, there was argument, and even the suggestion that they simply close up the chamber and call in backup. For a moment it seemed like that last one was the best option, but then again if there really were any Veltro members still around, they could release the virus during that time that it took for more units to arrive.

"Even or odd." Jill finally said, turning to Parker. "One of them makes us leave it alone, and the other presses the button, so pick one… even or odd."

The big man chose odd, but then quickly tried to change his answer, but it was too late. As soon as he said it, the brunette shrugged her shoulders and pushed the button while everyone gasped. An alarm sounded throughout the chamber and Jill thought for a second that she had made a mistake, but then something inside the holding tank began to change. There was a purplish cloud of something being released from below, and as it permeated through the contents, there was a slow reaction between the two chemicals that eventually resulted in the water becoming clear.

"So… that's it?" Chris asked, again looking to the others. "Did we, uh… do it? Damn it, why does this whole thing seem _really_ stupid right now?"

"_Because it 'is' stupid_." A new voice interrupted as the image on all the monitors changed to show a video feed. "_I'll admit it, you had me going there for longer than I'd like to say, but now I know the truth_."

The video feed was filled with the image of a very angry looking FBC Commissioner Lansdale, and now he was ranting something about Director O'Brian being a dirty rotten sneak for thinking he could manipulate someone like him, before pointing an accusatory finger at Chris and asking if the Agent really thought he would believe that a mission of such dire importance could be navigated through so quickly.

"_No, the pace at which you solved this mystery was meant to get under my skin._" Lansdale continued, now sitting back and laughing a little. "_I bet you thought that by coming in here and pretending to neutralize some virus, you could report back to your boss and make me think that you found some evidence linking me to the attack on Terragrigia, didn't you? Well, I was too smart for Veltro back then, and I'm too smart for you now_."

"Hold on a second." Jill interrupted, taking a step toward the monitors. "Are you telling us that _you_ were the one who attacked Terragrigia?"

Replying to calling her a moron, the Commissioner explained that Veltro had attacked that worthless, complacent city, and that he had simply provided them a means of getting in undetected. While Amelia Ashland had all her attention focused on her relationship with Chris, Lansdale had spent the whole time asserting more and more authority for himself over the city, and by the time the attack came, there was nothing that could stop it.

"_But you see, Jack Norman thought he could play me_." The Commissioner said. "_He thought that by recording our conversations that he could keep me under control, and if the idiot hadn't bragged about it to me it might've worked. But then I just adjusted the target of Regia SOLUS enough to graze the cruise liner his whole group was on… let's see how much good those recordings do him on the bottom of the ocean, and… and you all didn't know any of this, did you_?"

Everyone in the room just kind of looked at each other for a second, but then jumped when Lansdale slammed his hands down on the desk. Now he was enraged, screaming that he knew all along that Veltro was never back in action, and that while they would never have enough evidence to come after him, there was _plenty_ to make O'Brian take the fall. Not that any of them were going to be able to see the outcome one way or another.

"_Allow me to direct your attention to the screen_." Lansdale continued, calming down while the image changed to show what looked like an aerial shot of the Queen Zenobia. "_Now you see it… now you don't_."

Jill gasped as the upper decks of the ship's bow exploded in a bright orange fireball, raining down debris into the ocean while the upper aft sections followed suit, and then the lower decks until the whole ship was nothing more than a charred piece of wreckage that quickly sank below the waves. Now, nothing around the group had exploded, so it couldn't have been the Queen Zenobia, but the display still had the desired impact.

"_Yes, gaze upon the proud Queen Semiramus_." Lansdale gloated while the group watched in horror. "_She chooses death rather than suffer indignity, as will the Queen Zenobia… your fate, my dear BSAA agents… is quite literally in my hands._"


	26. Chapter 26 Losing Battle

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Twenty Six: Losing Battle**

_Queen Zenobia Veltro Laboratory_

_February 4th, 2007_

After witnessing the destruction of the Queen Semiramis and hearing Commissioner Lansdale's confession from his own lips, Jill knew that their already extreme situation had just gotten even more dangerous. If he had the power to destroy the Queen Zenobia as well, then how were the four of them supposed to get off the ship before it exploded? Lansdale seemed to sense that they were all feeling this way, and now he had a smug look on his face as if he knew that they were helpless.

"_Honestly, I've always preferred action to words_." The Commissioner said, his image on the screen smirking at them. "_And I trust that this action has made my position clear to you_?"

"It sure has." Chris immediately spoke up. "It's _clear_ that you're just another terrorist, and now we finally have a target."

Raising his eyebrows for a second and then chuckling to himself, Lansdale commented that those weren't the most original of last words, but that they were entertaining at least. However, instead of getting angry or just blowing them up right there, the Commissioner directed their attention to the fact that their numbers had reduced. It was true, Jill discovered after looking at the others: At some point during the video conversation Jessica had simply vanished, and it only took a second to figure out that she wasn't anywhere inside the room with them.

"_Fair is fair, is all I can say_." Lansdale said with a sigh. "_After all, if Raymond really was working for O'Brian this whole time, then it's only right that my own agents infiltrate the BSAA… loyal, dedicated to the cause… and ready to activate the self-destruct system on a cruise liner at a moment's notice. But don't worry… it seems that another lady has come to keep you company until Jessica reaches the Bridge_."

With that, the video feed went dead, leaving the virus chamber just as silent as when they arrived… except for the sound of soft approaching footsteps. They were coming from the door, so Jill turned around and had to take a step backwards out of surprise when she saw who it was that was now entering the room. Chris and Parker both just stood there staring at the really tall, blonde woman who's viral infection seemed to be progressing, judging by the darker discoloration of her skin… someone that the brunette had hoped to never see again.

"What the hell _is_ that?" Parker asked as the Tyrant slowly approached.

"That's Rachael." Jill replied as they all readied their pistols. "She got infected with T-Abyss, but… she's not like the other monsters we've seen."

"Whatever she is, we don't have time for it." Chris argued, taking a step forward. "We have to stop Jessica, so take it down."

_Bang! Bang! Bang!_ All three of them started pulling their triggers, peppering the Tyrant's body with bullet holes while the sounds of gunfire filled the chamber, and making her stumble backwards until all of their clips were empty. Unfortunately, Rachael was still on her feet by the time reloading was needed, and with each passing second Jessica got closer to the self-destruct system on the Bridge. From facing her before, the brunette knew that they were in for a tough fight, but Chris was right, there was just no time for them all to fight her off.

"Parker, you go after Jessica." Jill said as the Tyrant started approaching again. "Me and Chris will hold off Rachael."

To the big man this didn't seem like the logical choice, since both of them were smaller and faster on their feet than he was, but that was before the brunette reminded him that she and the Agent couldn't get infected by variations of the T-Virus. They could still be killed just as easily as anyone else, but at least there were now two of them to face off against the Tyrant when Parker finally agreed to leave them. He needed to run right past Rachael in order to get to the elevator, so Chris and Jill fired a few more shots with their pistols to distract her.

"_No need to… run_." The Tyrant whispered after him before turning to face the others. "_I'll find you… I'll always… find you_."

"Chris, bullets don't do anything to her, but she's photosensitive." Jill explained as they backed away from the approaching threat. "She'll be the most vulnerable in direct light, but… she's strong, and a lot faster than she looks."

"All right, fine." The Agent replied, holstering his pistol and then taking out his knife. "If we can't shoot her, then let's try cutting her down a bit."

The brunette didn't like the idea of taking on the Tyrant at close range, and with a knife of all things, but as she had just said, shooting Rachael just wasn't working. So she took out her knife as well, unable to stop thinking that what they were about to do was a bad idea, but they couldn't just stand there and do nothing. So the two of them attacked, and it went about as well as could be expected; she and Chris each managing to give Rachael a few good cuts on the arms and torso before finding herself getting kicked in the chest.

Jill had actually been aiming for that same leg with her blade, when the Tyrant lifted it up for a blow so powerful that it knocked the brunette off her feet and sent her rolling across the metal floor. Meanwhile, Chris was doing a little bit better, using this distraction to bury his blade deep into Rachael's back, and then ramming his shoulder into her hip in order to force the Tyrant into the beam of one of the room's light fixtures. Rachael cried out and her skin started to sizzle a little bit as soon as she was in the light, but then she reached around and grabbed the Agent by the belt with her split-arm.

As if he weighed nothing, the Tyrant broke the grip he had around her waist and hip-slung him so that the Agent crashed hard to the floor. Jill had come to a stop up against the water tank that had previously held the T-Abyss virus, and she was using it to pull herself to her feet, when Rachael reached around and ripped Chris's knife out of her back… before tossing it at the brunette as hard as she could. Before she could react, the flying blade stabbed into the palm of her hand with so much force that it was buried up to the hilt, pinning her to the glass tank, and leaving her unable to help Chris who was also trying to get up.

"_Handsome… so handsome you are_." The Tyrant whispered, grabbing his forearms and pinning them to his sides. "_I hate it… hate it here… so cold and… so lonely… stay with me_."

Obviously not wanting any part of that, the Agent started kicking at her legs, and even head butting Rachael when she started leaning down toward him… all of which did nothing. Now her lips were curling back into an angry scowl like they had just before she bit Jill, but instead of biting him something strange happened; a tube-like appendage suddenly shot out of her mouth and clamped itself down over Chris's, and then a bunch of the discolored ooze water started leaking out when his struggled broke the seal… like she was forcing that ooze down his throat in an effort to infect him like she had tried with the brunette.

"Leave him alone!" Jill yelled, her voice strained with pain from her bleeding hand. "Get off him, you bitch!"

She struggled to free herself in order to help him, but was unable to remove the knife, and then after several seconds the tube like appendage retracted into Rachael's mouth, leaving Chris to fall to the floor while vomiting up the discolored water. The Tyrant then returned her attention to Jill, quickly walking over to the tank, and ripping the knife out of her hand, only to shriek when she was sprayed with water that shot out from the small hole in the glass. Like what happened when she entered the light, Rachael's skin was sizzling, and not only that… the parts that got wet were now actually starting to melt off like the water was acid.

The Tyrant stepped away from the leaking water, groaning almost pitifully as more of her skin melted off, and that was when Jill realized what had happened. Not only had the strange purple gas from before neutralized the T-Abyss virus that was in the tank, but it must have still been in the water… hurting Rachael because she was infected. Without hesitation, the brunette her one good hand to grab the Tyrant by the blonde hair, pulling backwards with all her strength, and forcing Rachael back into the spray.

Shrieking when the water sprayed all over her head and torso, the Tyrant flew into a panicked rage, some of her hair falling out as she spun around and punched Jill in the ribs so hard that there was a cracking sound. Quickly finding herself unable to breathe properly, the brunette started to collapse, but was stopped when Rachael grabbed her by the hair and slammed the side of Jill's head into the glass so hard that another small crack was formed in the tank's surface.

"Jill!" Chris yelled, still coughing and puking up some of that ooze as he tried to get up. "Get away from her!"

The Tyrant was melting more and more as Jill fell down, becoming less human looking as she grabbed the brunette by the ankle, lifted her up into the air, and sunk those awful sharpened teeth into her leg. The brunette was too dazed from her other injuries to even cry out while Rachael bit down harder and harder, but then this grip was broken, allowing Jill to fall to the floor when Chris punched the Tyrant in the face. Rachael must have been weakened by the spraying water, because she stumbled back from the blow, ending up right back in the spray when the Agent rammed his shoulder into her stomach to push her back.

Screaming with her back right up against where the water was flowing out, the Tyrant tried to grab the Agent, but was unable to do this when her split arm fell off, allowing Chris to grab her by the jaw and slam her head into the hole. Rachael struggled to free herself, but by this time the water had reduced her limbs to little more than bones, and soon she simply fell to the floor, slowly melting into nothing while the water continued to pour down onto her, and then the fight was over.

"Jill!" Chris exclaimed, rushing over and then kneeling down with her. "Holy shit… its okay, everything's gonna be okay… I'm getting you out of here, just stay with me, all right?"

The brunette was hurt so badly that she was unable to make a reply, but that didn't stop the Agent from picking her up into his arms, and then carrying her toward the door just as an alarm began to sound throughout the ship.


	27. Chapter 27 Checkmate

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Twenty Seven: Checkmate**

_Queen Zenobia Bridge_

_February 4th, 2007_

Parker didn't want to leave Chris and Jill there to fight the mutated Rachael by themselves, but the brunette had been right that Jessica had to be stopped… if she really _was_ in fact an agent of Lansdale. The big man didn't want to believe that the young woman could have that kind of involvement in the FBC Commissioner's crimes, but there was evidence… so much evidence that she was. So he left the hidden laboratory, running past the Tyrant and exiting the chamber, not stopping until the elevator doors opened and he was on his way back up into the Queen Zenobia's upper levels.

Now that power had been restored and the stairs weren't required to move around the ship, the elevator could take him right up to the Bridge, or at least to the deck that the Bridge was on. Unfortunately, it would have taken Jessica right there, too, so Parker had to hurry if he was going to stop her in time… but there was still a part of him that wanted to believe that this was all just a misunderstanding. After all, he had known the young woman for a while now, and she just didn't seem like the type who would cover for a terrorist.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, he started moving, following the directory signs as he turned down hallway after hallway, and then shouldering the door to the Bridge open… only to find Jessica standing over one of the control panels. She had set her pistol down next to her, probably so that she could work with both hands, but that allowed Parker to not only surprise her, but also to have his own weapon ready just in case.

"Stop right there, Jessica!" The big man ordered, aiming at her back. "I might've believed that Lansdale was lying about you, but Raymond told me that there was a mole in the BSAA right before he died… so put your hands up, and move back from the controls."

"All right, just take it easy, Parker." The young woman replied, putting up her hands and slowly turning to face him. "I don't know what Lansdale said, but we _both_ saw with our own eyes that Raymond was with Veltro."

She did have a point about that last part, since it had been the young man who put together the fake tracking signal and then gassed both him and Jill, as well as knowing an awful lot about this ship. But then again, if Jessica wasn't with Lansdale, then why had she run away to the Bridge when they needed her, only to be found messing with controls right after the Queen Semiramus self-destructed? Her answer for that was that she panicked after seeing that the FBC Commissioner was behind all this, and that she only ran away because she was scared.

"I shouldn't have run away, I'm sorry." The young woman continued, looking like she was about to cry. "But come on, Parker, its _me_ here… you know I wouldn't do anything to endanger my teammates. I know what this looks like, but please put down the gun… you're scaring me."

As sure as he had been that she was a traitor when walking through the Bridge doors, now the big man was having doubts. Yeah, this whole situation looked bad for her, but it was also possible that that Raymond and Lansdale had been working together to frame her and draw suspicion from whatever was really going on. Damn it, he just didn't know, but the young woman couldn't really tell him anything if she was scared out of her wits, so he took a deep breath and decided to give her a gesture of good faith by lower his pistol.

_Bang! Bang! _As soon as he was no longer aiming at her, Jessica's expression became cold while she quickly grabbed her own weapon and started shooting. With expert precision, one of her bullets hit him in the right upper arm, and then another in the opposite leg, causing Parker to cry out as he collapsed to the floor. He tried to grab the pistol with his left hand, but the young woman advanced and kicked it away from his reach, only to make his vision go white for a second when she struck him in the side of the head with her own weapon.

"Stupid men." She scoffed, walking back to the control panel. "All a pretty girl has to do is cry a little, and you'll believe anything, huh?"

"Jessica… don't." The big man called weakly, groaning in pain. "Don't, you'll… you'll kill Chris, too."

Expecting Jessica to hesitate because of this, the young woman just scoffed again, grumbling something about how _he had his chance_, and then something about Ms. Ashland that he couldn't hear all of, but definitely sounded degrading. Nothing else that was said could be heard over the sound of the alarms that started blasting all over the ship. As soon as the self-destruct sequence was programmed, Jessica ran from the Bridge, vanishing through the door, and leaving Parker to fend for himself.

Not bothering to try and recover his pistol, the big man made an attempt to get up, which was a lot more difficult now that there was a bullet wound in his arm and leg. Best he could manage was to crawl across the floor until getting to one of the control panels that was low enough for him to grab onto. The pain was awful as he fought to get up, not needing his right arm as much as the left leg, but after two failed attempts, Parker was on his feet… or, at least slumped over the control panel.

"Chris… Jill… come in." He groaned into the radio. "Jessica… she's a traitor… set off self-destruct."

"_Parker, its Chris, are you all right_?" The Agent's voice crackled through. "_We're on our way up, but Jill's hurt pretty bad_."

Being that he was more concerned with Jill's wellbeing than his own, the big man simply replied that he would make it, and that he was still on the Bridge. The helicopter was still standing by, and Parker said that he would meet them there, but with as slow as he was limping the big man didn't know if he was going to make it. Leaning on the wall heavily, and not trying to stop himself from crying out loudly because of the pain, it felt like the walk back to the elevator was taking forever, and with the alarms and spinning lights already going off… no, don't think like that, he thought to himself as he pushed the elevator button… just keep moving.

BSAA Regional Headquarters

Birzebbuga, Malta

February 4th, 2007

Watching on the satellite feed as the Queen Zenobia exploded piece by piece, the support staff of the BSAA gasped in horror as the charred wreckage quickly sank beneath the waves. Radio contact with Chris and the others had been lost not long after it was reported that they were entering some kind of hidden deck at the bottom of the ship, and then nothing until the explosion.

"Chris, Parker, come in!" O'Brian shouted into the radio. "Can anyone hear me!? Jill?! Jessica?! Anyone, come in!"

Even Ms. Ashland, who was usually so confident and composed, was standing there staring wide-eyed at the screen with her hands over her nose and mouth. The brown haired woman was so upset that she was shaking a little, and then there was silence… the awful kind of silence that feels like it lasts for hours, when people are waiting for important news. But then something came through the radio, and once it could be understood, Amelia let out a loud squeal of joy that startled the Director so much that he jumped a little himself.

"Chris, thank God!" O'Brian exclaimed. "Is everyone all right?"

"_Jill and Parker are hurt pretty bad, I'm flying them right to Saint James Hospital_." The Agent's voice replied. "_It was Jessica, she killed Raymond, and then blew up the whole ship… Lansdale was one step ahead of us the whole time, and… we lost everything."_

After hearing this, Amelia grabbed her car keys off the table and rushed for the door, saying that she was going to meet up with them at the hospital, and as much as the Director wanted to go with her, he had to stay and handle things. With both ships down, and no evidence against the FBC Commissioner, it seemed that they were back at zero… and then there was another sound. Suddenly the doors were kicked open, and more than a dozen armored men with automatic rifles stormed into BSAA Headquarters, grabbing and subduing every member of the support staff that they came across.

"FBC, hands up!" One of them yelled before grabbing a man who was carrying papers. "Get down! Get down on the ground, now!"

In less than a minute, all of the support staff were lying face down on the floor, some of whom were taken down with a lot more force than others, and then the Director found himself staring down the barrel of a few guns himself after his office doors were kicked open. Out in the common area the support staff were being put in handcuffs, with some of them being kicked or stepped on when the armed men in body armor moved to the next targets… and then Morgan Lansdale, Commissioner of the FBC, walked in, making a bee-line for the Director's office.

"Under Section 7 of the 2006 Revised FBC Charter." Lansdale said calmly as he walked in. "The BSAA is hereby suspended, and placed under the direct supervision of the FBC, and as for _you_… Clive R. O'Brian, you are under arrest for collaborating with the terrorist organization, Veltro."

Of course, the Director denied this, but there wasn't a lot that he could say after the Commissioner accused him of using the bioterrorist's resources, bases, and even personnel to facilitate his own operations. Due to this gross miss use of personal power, agents of both the FBC and BSAA were placed in mortal danger, and an outbreak of a virus that O'Brian knew was active was nearly unleashed into the world's oceans. This was all true, but it was done with the intention of finding evidence of Lansdale's involvement in the Terragrigia Panic, not that this was a good defense.

"Men, take Mr. O'Brian into custody." The Commissioner ordered. "It is unfortunate that you had to be so rough on him, but he brought it on himself by resisting arrest."

Suddenly the armed men grabbed the Director and slammed his face down onto the desk, before painfully twisting his arms behind his back and putting on handcuffs as tightly as they could possibly go. Once restrained, they stood O'Brian back up, only to slam the stock of a rifle into his stomach, and once the Director fell onto the floor, Lansdale watched calmly as they started to kick and stomp him.

"Are you still listening, Mr. Redfield?" He asked into the radio once the armed men dragged O'Brian away. "You've got six hours to turn yourselves in to FBC custody, or I fear that your friend here will be killed trying to escape. Six hours… checkmate."


	28. Chapter 28 Amelia's Longshot

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Twenty Eight: Amelia's Longshot**

_Saint James Hospital_

_Sliema, Malta_

_February 4th, 2007_

Chris wasn't sure what he was going to do, beyond getting Jill and Parker to the hospital, because he couldn't just turn himself in to the FBC. From where he was standing, it looked like Lansdale had won, and since the law was on his side as well, this branch of the BSAA was pretty much finished. There was no point in trying to call the other divisions for help, since there would be nothing they could do without evidence… and now all of it was on the bottom of the ocean, at least according to the Commissioner.

"Now don't you worry none, sugar." Amelia said to Jill before they took her for treatment. "You're gonna be gettin' the best care there is, I promise you."

Parker only needed a unit or two of blood, on top of treatment for his arm and leg, but the brunette was a whole different story, and the doctors said that they were going to have to put her under in order to treat the swelling in her head from the blunt force trauma. It was expected that both of them would recover with time, but right now time was something that Chris didn't have. He didn't believe that Lansdale would outright kill O'Brian in six hours… maybe after a full day… but damn it, there had to be something that he could do.

"So you're tellin' me that the leader of Veltro recorded his stuff with Lansdale?" Amelia asked once they were alone in the hallway. "And that's why that asshole went and sunk the Queen Dido?"

"Yeah, apparently all the evidence we'd ever need went down with it." The Agent replied, almost wanting to laugh. "Too bad it's all been underwater for a year."

Then again, maybe that wasn't so bad at all, at least that was what Amelia suggested. The way she figured it, if Veltro had something that important, then it probably wasn't just being carried around in Jack Norman's pocket… more like in one of those fireproof safes… you know, the ones that were air tight and waterproof. The very idea of that was a longshot, hell, it made longshots seem like a sure thing, but so far it was all they had. According to Lansdale, the Queen Dido had gone down right next to Terragrigia, so it wouldn't be hard to find, and there _was_ emergency scuba gear on the helicopter, but… with Jill and Parker out of commission, he didn't like the idea of exploring an infected ship alone… even a sunken one.

"Then I guess I'm comin' along." The brown haired woman said. "Look at you, bein' all romantic takin' me down to a sunken ship."

Chris didn't like the idea of taking her along, even though they had survived the Terragrigia Panic together, and she had actually done pretty well for a civilian with no combat training. Still, if the Zenobia and the Semiramus had both suffered viral outbreaks, well… Amelia hadn't had the Daylight vaccine, and he didn't want anything to happen to her. She thought that was sweet and all, but she was going whether he liked it or not, because her fuel was still needed if Chris wanted to go anywhere in that helicopter at all.

"It looks like I don't have a choice then." The Agent said while she was arranging to refuel the bird. "But it could be _really_ dangerous, so you'll have to do what I tell you, all right?"

"Darlin', you know I _love_ it when you take charge." Amelia replied playfully, giving him a kiss on the cheek. "And besides, I got me a big strong _man_ lookin' after me."

He still didn't like it, but the matter was settled, and the most unsafe thing in the world that a diver could do was go down somewhere alone. So as soon as the paperwork was taken care of for Jill and Parker, and the helicopter was refueled, the two of them took off on what was probably the most desperate search in the history of the world. With only three hours left on Lansdale's original deadline, the helicopter was flying over the Mediterranean toward the tilted ruins of Terragrigia, with the brown haired woman's memory serving as how they were going to find the third Queen, based on where each ship had been docked.

"Zenobia and Semiramus were already out." She said, looking down at the ruins with binoculars. "But Dido was docked for resupply… there. Right down there."

In all the time that had passed, the sun had risen to its full morning glory, illuminating everything with dark orange light that was slowly intensifying, so it was easier for her to point out. This was also the best lead that they were going to get, so Chris had the helicopter start down while the two of them put on the emergency air tanks and flippers along with the wetsuits that they had already changed into. The helicopter wasn't made for water landings, so the pilot got as low as he could, and then the two of them just had to jump, so Amelia took the Agent's hand, and that was what they did.

_Splash_! Hitting the water, and seeing nothing but a bunch of bubbles at first, Chris took a look around to get his bearings, only to find out that the brown haired woman was already swimming down toward the struts of Terragrigia's base. The Agent followed, actually finding it difficult to keep up with her, probably because her body was so petite and aerodynamic compared to his… either that, or she was already an experienced diver. Yeah, of course she was… with all that money, why wouldn't she learn how to do things like that?

Regardless of Amelia's skills when it came to scuba diving, her memory was spot on, since after swimming down to the ocean floor, which wasn't nearly as deep as Chris originally thought, it only took about fifteen minutes of exploring to find what they were looking for. There was enough sunlight now to see around them, even at that depth, and right there, leaning against one of the struts, was a wrecked cruise liner. Its port side must have taken the hit from Regia SOLUS, since there wasn't much of the hull left on that whole area, and the rest was covered with rust and barnacles.

As the two of them approached, the words _QUEEN DIDO_ were visible, but barely legible on the bow, so at least they knew they were looking in the right place. But this ship was just as big as the other two, and something as small as a fireproof safe or whatever, would be a difficult thing from behind, if it even survived the sinking… or even existed at all. A lot of the damaged port side was against the strut or simply buried by sand, so the easiest way to get inside was probably through one of the hatches, or maybe there was a hole in the lower decks, since that was where the hidden lab was in the Queen Zenobia.

Yeah, that made sense… the most secure location on the ship was the best place to start, so Chris waved for Amelia to follow him, and then the two of them made their way all the way down to the keel of the ship, where thankfully there were several holes from the final crash. Since they had no way to track, well… anything down there, one entrance was as good as another, so the Agent crawled into the first hole that they came to, finding himself in what looked like a corroded version of the Zenobia's engineering section.

It was a lot darker in there, so they were forced to use the waterproof flashlights that came with the diving equipment, creating a narrow beam of light that made the Agent appreciate the power systems of the Queen Zenobia a lot more. Suddenly Amelia grabbed his ankle from behind and yanked him backwards just as he was about to go around a corner, confusing Chris until he saw something large float past where he would have been. It was a discolored, formless blob that was bloated in places, but its only real identifiable feature was its mouth; a sort of triangular opening that had sets of teeth on all three sides… yeah, not something that he wanted to blindly swim into.

That thing definitely didn't look like a normal fish, but there hadn't been a huge viral outbreak since the Terragrigia Panic, so it was possible that there was a supply of T-Abyss on this ship, too, that was maybe slowly leaking out. That was important to know, regardless of what they found on the Queen Dido, but they still continued on, but with the Agent being a lot more careful around corners from that point forward. So far everything they found was covered with rust and barnacles, with only the walls and metal pieces of furniture surviving a year of exposure to saltwater… but then he came to a service ladder and followed it up into something unexpected.

Just as he was about to reach a hatch to the next deck, Chris's arms got heavier while reaching for it, and it took him a second to realize that it was because the hatch itself wasn't in the water. He had discovered some kind of air pocket, and… if the air was trapped there, did that mean that there might be more on the other side? This was probably just a small bubble of air that would get released as soon as the hatch wheel was turned, but to his surprise this didn't happen even when the hatch was pushed all the way open… a larger pocket of air?

Climbing up the ladder, and exiting the water before getting into the next deck where the whole place was surprisingly dry, the Agent offered his hand to help Amelia up, and then the biggest surprise came when he took a risk by taking the air hose out of his mouth and taking a breath. Surprisingly, there was still breathable air after all this time, and after removing his goggles, Chris saw as he moved the flashlight around, that the place was largely intact. Obviously there was no power, but the area rugs along the floor, the decorative portraits on the walls, and even the fake plants were all just like they were on the Queen Semiramus.

Well, this was great news; if there was a whole large part of the ship that was preserved like this, then it was possible that somewhere around there was the evidence that Veltro collected on Lansdale. It was still a big area to search, and it still might yield nothing useful, but at least now they weren't limited by how much air was in the tanks, which really wasn't much to begin with since it was emergency equipment.

"Hey Chris, I just had a thought." Amelia whispered, moving closer to him. "What if all them Veltro people didn't die when the Queen Dido went down? What if… what if they been livin' trapped down this whole time?"

No, that was ridiculous, the Agent thought at first; anyone who had been trapped down there for a year with only what was in this one part of the ship to sustain themselves would have starved, or gone completely nuts after so long down there without the sun. Of course, if there were crazed survivors down there from Veltro… he and Amelia were going to have to be very careful, since they were both unarmed.


	29. Chapter 29 The Final Queen

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Twenty Nine: The Final Queen**

_Queen Dido Shipwreck_

_Terragrigia Quarantine Zone_

_February 4th, 2007_

Taking another look around with the flashlight before taking cover next to the door into the next section, Chris put his finger to his lips as a signal for Amelia to not make any noise while he listened for any voices or movement. It wasn't very likely that anyone had survived down there for a whole year, but not any less likely than finding a giant pocket of breathable air, so the Agent took the knife out of his boot before slowly making his way through the first open doorway.

It was just another corridor, and stealth was probably pointless because there was no light in this place at all, and anyone remaining would easily spot the flashlight beam, but after rounding the next corner into a room that might have once been a private dining hall for first class passengers, the Agent was starting to doubt that anyone survived after all. The table and chairs were still intact, but the plates and silverware were discarded onto the floor as if tossed away, and in their place was a row of…

"Chris, are those _bodies_?!" Amelia asked with a frightened gasp. "This ain't right… it just ain't right at all."

The brown haired woman was scared by this awful sight, so Chris held her while using the flashlight to take a more detailed look at the corpses that were laid out across the long table in a row, with an old bedsheet draped partially over each. Yeah, they were long dead based on how decayed their flesh was, but on the wall behind them was something the Agent hadn't noticed before. The first thing was a list of names that were carved into the wall, and out of all of them, the name _JACK NORMAN_ was the only one that wasn't scratched out. The second thing was a series of tally marks in groups of five, like what prisoners did to measure days… and, man, there were a lot of them.

"Don't worry, Amelia, we won't be here long." He said, trying to comfort her. "I just need you to be brave and stay close to me, can you do that?"

The brown haired woman nodded, taking his hand and staying real close as they moved the rest of the way through the dining room, toward the next door. As far as he could figure, the bodies must have been the survivors of Veltro, but now with only one possibly left down there, unless… unless he died, too, and there was just no one left to scratch his name off. Passing through the next doorway, the two of them came to a narrow corridor that led into the kitchen, or… at least it might have been a kitchen at one time.

After passing through the flimsy double doors, the first thing Chris saw were holes where all of the appliances like ovens and refrigerators would have been hooked up, while the appliances themselves had been discarded over against one of the walls, leaving a large open chamber with… with a throne at the back? A refrigerator had been laid on its back in front of two more that were standing pushed together so that a wooden chair could be at the top, and on the wall behind that was a huge yellow Veltro banner. This wasn't the important part, though… the important part was that there was someone sitting on the throne… someone who was breathing.

"What… who's there?" The throne's occupant asked as if confused, holding up his hand to block the flashlight beam. "Lansdale? Morgan Lansdale, have you come at last? Come to silence the truth?!"

Even though he looked a little malnourished, and his skin was pale from being in the dark for so long, the Agent had seen him before. In the video that had been broadcast, threatening to contaminate the water with T-Abyss, this was the person who did the demonstration on the fish tank… Jack Norman. Jesus, how had this guy survived for so long, and more importantly, did he really have the evidence they needed to convict Lansdale?

"Hold on, take it easy." Chris replied, moving the light beam away because this person was getting agitated. "You're Jack Norman, the leader of Veltro, right? Look, we're not here to fight, and if you can help us, then I promise we'll get you out of here."

"Promise?" Norman asked, raising his eyebrows. "Lansdale made promises, too… promised to help the cause, promised to make the world wake up to the lies and corruption of… of… of you… you, you there… _you_ are the builder! You sow the seeds of mankind's death, you… the builder of the disgusting Terragrigia… Amelia Ashland."

The Agent motioned for her to get behind him while Veltro's founder stood up from his throne, and as he scaled the makeshift stairs, the older man took something out of his pocket. It was an iPod, and Norman claimed that it held all of the truth that people such as Lansdale and Ashland sought to destroy. In the end it was ironic to him that this tiny machine, a piece of the modern world that Veltro fought against, would become the instrument of divine justice, but first she was going to witness the horror that people like her allowed to be released.

"Back off, Norman." Chris ordered, stepping in between them. "Amelia's got nothing to do with Lansdale or the virus."

"She is of the same cloth." Norman replied, his voice getting deeper, and large cracks appearing in his skin as he approached. "When the Queen Dido went down, there was only one way to survive, and my need for vengeance allowed me to embrace T-Abyss for all its glory… and now you shall do the same."

He tossed the iPod away, and suddenly the older man's skin shattered like it was nothing but a glass coating for the true beast underneath, and now he was getting taller and stockier while Chris and Amelia backed away. Now discolored and oozing discolored water like the enhanced monster on the Queen Zenobia, strips of armor plating were forming across his whole body while his hands became webbed claws, and his face… his face was now nothing but an empty red socket where a single eye sat in the middle.

"Amelia, run!" The Agent yelled. "Get back to the surface, and get help!"

Like anyone who was told to leave someone they cared about behind, Amelia asked what he planned to do, and the only thing Chris could think of doing was staying alive long enough to find where the iPod had fallen, but he couldn't find it while protecting her. So the beam of the brown haired woman's flashlight vanished when she ran out of the room, and the Agent shined his own flashlight right into the monster's eye before running in the general direction where the small device had landed.

Because of how long Norman had been in total darkness, he was even more photosensitive than the other infected creatures, causing him to shriek and stumble backwards, and giving the Agent a few seconds to search. Problem was that the iPod was black and so was the kitchen floor, so he hadn't found anything by the time that the monster was on him. Ducking down under a swipe of its webbed claws, Chris shined the flashlight in its eye again, with the same result, and then he tried stabbing it with the knife.

Because of all the armor plates, the blade was useless against Norman's body, and the next time those webbed claws came at him, the Agent jumped back… but not without feeling a stinging sensation as the edge of one of the claws tore through his wetsuit. The worst part about all this was how dark the interior of the Queen Dido was, causing Chris to bump into things and trip over discarded pots because he could only see what was in the light beam. Moving to the side to avoid another attack, the Agent blinded the monster once again, and this time managed to stab his knife right through its single eye… which didn't do much at all.

Now he gasped after feeling a sudden pain in his stomach, and when Chris looked down he saw that he had been stabbed by one of the claws… a claw that was now lifting him up and tossing him across the kitchen, where he crash landed onto a pile of small appliances. There was blood coming from the wound, and it was hard to even sit up, and… oh shit, the knife was gone. Scanning the room with his flashlight, the Agent saw nothing but the monster as it approached with blood dripping from its claw… no, wait, there was someone else… Amelia?

"That's enough." She ordered sternly while walking toward Norman. "Get away from him."

Apparently losing interest in Chris, the monster growled as it started walking toward her, and then something strange happened. The brown woman walked right up to the monster and snapped her fingers, and then the Agent's vision blurred, looking something like static from an old television until it looked like he was seeing two different images at once. However, one of those images faded away, and everything was clear now.

_On his feet before he even realized it, Chris picked up a large sauce pot and slammed it down over Norman's head, and then shove the monster backwards so that it slipped in a puddle of spilled, uh… something. His mind filled with nothing but love with Amelia and the need to protect her, the Agent managed to find a bottle of alcohol, and stuffed a rag inside after taking off the cap. Using his trusty lighter to ignite the rag, Chris tossed the makeshift Molotov Cocktail at the monster, causing it to burst into flames, because light was the only thing that could hurt it. While Norman writhed in agony and burned to a crisp on the floor, Chris was free to find the iPod, which he discovered immediately because… he was that good._

"You done it, Chris!" Amelia shouted, throwing her arms around the heavily disoriented Agent. "You whooped that beast and found the iPod all by yourself, because you're just that good! Oh, my hero, kiss me!"

The kiss that followed was great, but the moment was kind of ruined by the lingering pain from where he had been stabbed in the stomach. Oh God, Chris's head was hurting, and he was really confused… how the hell had he managed to just get up like that and kill the mutated Norman? But it was done; the leader of Veltro was nothing but a charred husk in the center of the room, and the little black iPod was in his hand, so… they won? Oh, and the fire must've been pretty intense, because the whole sleeve of Amelia's wetsuit looked like it had been burned off.

"Oh Chris, I'm the luckiest girl in the world for havin' you." The brown haired woman continued, helping him walk back toward the door. "I'm gonna tell everyone how you went in there started showin' Veltro who's boss."

"Yeah… I'm great." Chris replied, his head still swimming a little as they got closer to the hatch. "Where did I get that lighter from?"


	30. Chapter 30 Never Forgive

**Revelations: Resident Evil SV**

**Chapter Thirty: Never Forgive**

_After returning to the surface from the wreckage of the Queen Dido, the video files recovered from Jack Norman's iPod were sent to the NTS News Network, allowing the whole world to see the venerable Commissioner of the FBC providing a supply of T-Abyss virus to the leader of Veltro for the attack on Terragrigia, along with UAV's for delivery. This revelation led to the arrest and conviction of Morgan Lansdale, as well as the release of BSAA Regional Director Clive O'Brian._

_With news of this corruption reaching the United States, President Graham disbanded the FBC, transferring most of its agents and funding to the BSAA. Now a fully funded and equipped anti-bioterrorism organization, its overhauled charter allowed for the formation of several regional branches, all under the direct authority of the United Nations. However, in taking responsibility for his actions which led to the endangerment and death of agents under his command, Director O'Brian stepped down from his position. He still acts as an advisor to the BSAA, and is currently writing a detective novel from the comfort of his own home._

_Although their injuries were severe, after a stint in the hospital, BSAA agents Jill Valentine and Parker Luciani both made a full recovery. Jill continues to serve as Chris Redfield's partner in the BSAA North American branch, while Parker has risen to become a leading figure of the European branch. As for the traitor, Jessica Sherawat, wanted for conspiracy to destroy evidence and the murder of Raymond Vester, she remains at large…_

_Café de la Rotonde_

_Paris, France_

_August 23rd, 2007_

One of the nice things about being in Paris while trying to keep a low profile, was that pretty much every woman was gorgeous, so eyes weren't as drawn to strangers based on their looks. This scenario worked out perfectly for Jessica while she sat at a small table drinking her tea at Café de la Rotonde, well… that, and the large purple hat she wore obscuring her face. Things had been going pretty well for her since the Queen Zenobia disaster, with most people forgetting that the young woman even existed, especially after the high profile arrest of Morgan Lansdale… that poor deluded bastard actually believed that bioterrorism could be averted by committing acts of bioterrorism… whatever.

"_Excusez moi madam_." A female voice said as someone approached her table. "_Mais pour un Americain stupide, vous etes etonnamment difficile a trouver_."

"_Quest-ce que tu viens de dire_?" Jessica started to snap as she looked up. "Well, isn't this a shock? Who would've thought a backwater bayou _bitch_ like you could speak French? How did you find me, Amelia? Or was this just dumb luck, like you being born with all that money?"

Wearing a genuine smile as she sat down, Amelia Ashland replied that she had been looking for her ever since the fall of the FBC, and that she had employed the services of the _Greatest Detective in Raccoon City_, only to find not to engage… she wanted that pleasure all for herself. As for having all that money, though, Jessica was surprised when the brown haired woman explained that she hadn't been born with it at all… she had killed Umbrella's entire board of directors, and then sold all their stock about a week before the company collapsed.

"That's great, Amelia, but guess what else is about to collapse." The young woman said while taking something out of her purse and keeping it hidden under the table. "_You are_ if I pull the trigger of the silenced 9mm that I have aimed at your stomach, so tell whatever goons you brought with you to back off, and then you and me are gonna take a walk."

"And I bet you're willin' to do it, ain't you?" Amelia replied calmly. "No goons, just me sugar, and trust me, you ain't the first pretty girl I had point a gun at me. Why, back in '98 I once had Chris's sister spend about eighteen hours tryin' her _darndest_ to kill me… and with things a lot bigger than that little _pea-shooter_ you're holdin'."

Usually the threat of a loaded gun was enough to scare prissy little rich people like her, but surprisingly the brown haired woman wasn't afraid at all. Was it because she knew that Jessica couldn't just gun her down right there without drawing unwanted attention to herself? Or was she really delusional enough to think that she was somehow invincible. But if it was true that Amelia came alone to confront her… what was the point? The brown haired woman wasn't armed, not that anything could be hidden in the cute little sundress she was wearing, and no one around them was… hold on, now everyone was getting up and heading toward the door.

"_We must go to the Eiffel Tower_." All the customers and workers said in unison as they walked out of the café. "_It is a famous attraction… we want to see it_."

As if pre-programmed, all of the people, both customers, servers, everyone calmly walked out the door while repeating that stuff about the Eiffel Tower, and once everyone was outside the owner locked the door, rotated the sign to say _Ferme_, and finally pulled down the metal shutters as if locking up for the night. With another muffled repeat of that same statement, everyone was heard walking away

"What the… hell?" Jessica asked, keeping the pistol aimed. "What is this, did you pay these people off? Are you fucking with me? Remember, I'm a damn good shot; I'll empty this whole clip into your heart before you can make a move."

"No, sugar, I ain't paid no one off." Amelia replied with a smirk. "In fact, all this whole thing cost me was the price of a two week holiday for two in Paris. Remember me sayin' I hired a detective to find you? Well, me and Tobias go _way_ back, and he found you in less than a day, can you believe it? Anyhoo, I don't need no attention on me just like you don't, so when I was hirin' Tobias to find you, I got his wife to clear this whole city block out. Sweet girl, that Gillette Liquid, real fine catch for him."

Now _those_ were names that the young woman recognized, but Tobias Liquid was an even worst bioterrorist than Lansdale had been, and Gillette was classified as a Level 4 Biohazard, so what would a rich girl like Amelia be doing with them? Was she making it all up? Was this some kind of ploy to get her to turn herself in out of fear? Well, it wasn't going to work because even if Jessica wasn't rich, she could still vanish again, so the decision was made.

_Ptt-ptt-ptt-ptt-ptt_, aiming right for the brown haired girl's heart, Jessica fired several shots with her silenced pistol, all of which hit their target, but something was wrong… she had expected Amelia to gasp or groan when she was shot, and then maybe fall onto the floor or collapse onto the table, but except for a slight twitch from each one, the bullets didn't seem to affect her at all.

"Oh, and speakin' of wives, I thought you might wanna see this." Amelia continued, taking off one of her long gloves as if she didn't even notice the bullets. "Guess who _popped the question_ to little ol' me… ain't Chris a darlin'? He saved up three months pay to get this ring… I just wanted to rub that in your smug little man-stealin' face before I killed you same way I went and killed Jack Norman… wanna see how I did it?"

The brown haired woman snapped her fingers, and then Jessica cried out as the pistol she was holding burst into flames, causing her to drop it and then nearly fall out of her chair as she jumped up. At the same time that the gun burned up, the glove and sleeve on Amelia's arm was burned up as well, and now for some reason her arm was a kind of pale green color… which faded back into a normal skin tone a few seconds later.

"Jesus Christ!" Jessica yelled, cradling her burned hands and backing away as the brown haired woman stood up. "What the fuck are you?!"

"Not _what_, darlin', but _who_?" Amelia corrected, looking down at her arm as the green faded away. "It's funny, all a girl has to do is dye her hair, talk different, wear jeans, and can't no one recognize her. You know, my name ain't even Amelia Ashland… its _Alexia Ashford_, it's just a… darned shame I gotta keep on changin' Chris's memories every time he figures that out. He thinks _he_ beat Jack Norman, ain't that a hoot? Scream if you think it's funny, sugar."

Snapping her fingers again, this time the young woman felt a burst of extreme heat as the whole café burst into flames, no wait… it was _her_ who burst into flames. Screaming as her whole body was completely engulfed, Jessica tried to run away, but didn't get more than a couple steps before she simply collapsed… the sharp laughter of Alexia Ashford the last thing that the young woman heard before being completely consumed.


End file.
